According to recent figures compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, China was the world largest wind market in 2012. They installed 15.9W of onshore turbines, which is more than a third of all new capacity throughout the world. 2012 was actually the fourth successive year that China led in this field, overtaking the US efforts in 2009.
Wind energy is now China’s third-largest energy source, only behind coal and hydropower. In 2012, China actually showed an 18% decline in annual installations from their record in 2011 of 19.3W. Many projects were delayed because of grid connection issues. Interestingly, new financial investments in wind in China fell in 2012 as well, to $27.2b, according to the Bloomberg New Energy Finance data. However, with the falling cost of wind energy, this means that the same dollar amount of investment will finance 10% more megawatts than it did during 2011.
When looking at the wind turbine suppliers in China, it is interesting to note that all of their leading suppliers were homegrown. These included Goldwind, Guodian United Power and Sinovel. As China wind analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance Demi Zhu said,
| “2012 was a good year for the Chinese wind industry, considering how tough the environment was. The industry faced many problems including a reluctance by the grid operator to buy all the intermittent electricity produced by wind farms, plus stricter permitting requirements, unpaid subsidies and vigorous government efforts to cool down the industry’s rate of expansion.” |