The Peoples Republic of China, Ministry of Finance, had rolled out a program to subsidize domestic manufacturers
of wind power generation equipment and components -- particularly targeting sophisticated more bearings and
electronics needed to build larger turbines.
By funneling the subsidy funding only through Chinese-owned manufacturers or Chinese-owned holding
companies, the government hopes to give domestic development and manufacturing efforts an edge
over firms with foreign involvement.
Virtually all of China's current production of advanced wind power equipment is
dependent upon components engineering and/or produced by foreign manufacturers and/or foreign-controlled
joint ventures.
The official focus of the initiative, "Interim Procedures for Management of Wind Power Generation
Equipment Industrialization Special Funds," is to promote an entirely domestic industry
for units generating 1 megawatt or more.
China does already have a fast-growing domestic industry producing low kilowatt output wind power
units, but those are relatively unsophisticated and are not sufficient to meet the
Chinese government's target for wind energy production.
The official government target is for renewable energy sources such as tidal and wind to
produce at least 15% of the country's fast-growing energy needs by 2020.
An excellent in-depth article about wind energy in China is here, from The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/25/renewableenergy.alternativeenergy
[ opens in new window ]