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Confronted with a cooling global market, Chinese wind turbine manufacturers are introducing more advanced technologies in a bid to sharpen their competitive edge.
A 5-megawatt wind turbine made by Beijing-based Sinovel Wind Group Co passed a 240-hour continuous operating test at an offshore wind farm near the Donghai Bridge in Shanghai on August 27, the company said in a statement on its website on September 5.
It is the largest offshore wind turbine solely developed and tested by a Chinese company so far, and it operated with full utility and no glitches during the test, the statement said.
In August 2010, Sinovel installed 34 units of 3-megawatt wind turbines for the Donghai Bridge Offshore Wind Farm, the first offshore wind farm outside Europe.
Currently, the world's largest turbine is the 7.5-megawatt E-126 made by German company Enercon, Jorrit Gosens, a PhD candidate at the Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), told the Global Times Thursday.
"It has 60-meter blades. That's almost as wide as the wingspan of an Airbus A380," said Gosens.
But as growth of the wind power market slows down, some are suggesting that Chinese companies should focus more on research and development, rather than racing to build larger turbines.
Shrinking profits
Sinovel's operating profit declined by 81 percent year-on-year to 100.7 million yuan ($15.9 million) in the first six months of 2012, the Shanghai-listed company said in its first-half financial statement on August 28.
Xinjiang-based Goldwind Science & Technology Co, another heavyweight in the wind turbine sector, reported an operating profit of 48.6 million yuan for the first half of 2012, down by 91 percent year-on-year, the Shenzhen-listed firm said in a financial report on August 25.
The market growth rates in Europe, Asia and North America, the world's three major wind power markets, have all declined drastically in 2009-11 from 2005-09, according to a 2o11 annual report released by Belgium-based Global Wind Energy Council in March.
"The market will not recover in the near future and turbine prices will continue to fall," the English version of Germany's New Energy magazine reported in March, citing experts at New York-based management consulting firm Oliver Wyman Group.
"They anticipate an annual growth rate of 7 percent from 2011 to 2016, and only expect to see an improvement sometime between 2016 and 2020, when growth could reach 11 or 12 percent. It will be interesting to see what share Chinese manufacturers have in this development," it said.
Bigger turbines
Both Sinovel and Goldwind have responded to the downturn with plans to upgrade to "super" turbines, or those with capacities of above 3 megawatts, to get through the market turbulence.
"The company has continuously carried out a series of optimization programs for 1.5-megawatt, 3-megatwatt, 5-megawatt and 6-megawatt wind turbines
| Product Model | Inside Diameter | Outside Diameter | Thickness |
| CRBS708 IKO | 70 | 86 | 8 |
| CRBS608VUU IKO | 60 | 76 | 8 |