China tops global wind turbine rankings as Goldwind beats out GE

China, a long-time leader of the global solar market, is now making its presence felt in wind energy, with a Chinese company topping Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s rankings for onshore turbine manufacturers for the first time in 2015.

Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology nudged out US giant GE to take out top spot in BNEF’s annual rankings – which accounts for energy capacity both planned and installed – with a total of 7.8GW of capacity commissioned in 2015 – virtually all of which was built.

BNEF says Goldwind’s success – and the appearance of four other Chinese wind turbine makers in the rankings’ top 10 – was buoyed by a surging domestic market, with a record 28.7GW of wind energy capacity installed for the year.

As you can see in the chart below, all of the Chinese made turbines were either installed or destined for China or the greater Asia Pacific market, while most of the other top ranking companies from Europe and the US – including Vestas (#2), GE (#3), and Siemens (#4) – made a small amount of turbines for China, too.

Amy Grace, BNEF’s head of wind research, said the China-heavy top 10 was hardly surprising, considering China contributed to roughly half the global capacity in 2015.

What was surprising, she added, was how dominant Goldwind was in its own market.

“The company commissioned more than two-and-a-half times the amount of capacity as the next largest Chinese manufacturer, Guodian,” Grace said.

In Australia, Goldwind is behind construction of the 175MW White Rock wind farm in northern NSW, the second big wind farm to get the go-ahead after the revised renewable energy target legislation passed the Senate last June.

The company bought the project from Spanish group Epuron at the height of RET uncertainty in October last year, and in July got the nod from Transgrid to connect it to the NEM.

Stage one of the wind farm is targeted for completion by June 2017, when it is expected to generate enough energy to power 75,000 homes a year. White Rock has development approval for up to 119 wind turbines in total, and is hoping to add 20MW of solar to the project, too.

Early last year, Goldwind also floated plans to add up to 12MW of solar to its Gullen Range wind farm in the NSW Southern Tablelands, subject to the federal government’s final decision on the RET.