The European Union will investigate subsidies received by Chinese suppliers of wind turbines destined for Europe, the bloc’s anti-trust commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, has said.
Production capacity in Europe and the United States, by contrast, stood at 19 per cent and 9 per cent respectively.Its top three manufacturers, Goldwind, Envision and Mingyang had combined orders of 55.3 GW in 2022, versus only 26.7 GW for the top three Western makers, Vestas, GE and Siemens Energy, data from consultancy Enerdata shows.
Spurred by state support, China installed 77.1 GW of wind power last year, accounting for 65 per cent of the global total. By comparison, European Union countries built only 17 GW. In 2021, the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong said it would offer subsidies of between 500 yuan and 1,500 yuan per kilowatt of offshore wind capacity until 2025.
In an annual report to China’s legislature in March, Premier Li Qiang vowed to unleash “new productive forces” to drive growth in high-tech manufacturing as the economy stalls amid a property crunch and trade tension.