Thomas Friedman is right, the Chinese are going to clean our clocks in wind power. Friedman wrote an article for the New York Times (or Wall Street Journal) that got me digging for more information and the results I am finding confirm that Friedman is right and the USA and Europe are about to play second fiddle to Chinese produced cheap wind power.

China needs around 147,000 wind turbines by 2020 at the minimum and if the government expands the target megawatt projections, China could need 174,000 wind turbines by 2025. The three largest wind producers inside China, (Dongfang, Goldwind , and Sinovel) can produce around 3000 wind turbines maxed out in production per year. One can do the math and 147,000 divided by 3000 does not equate to the chinese government quota’s.

China government dictates that 70% of the stimulus money be spent on Chinese companies for Chinese parts and chinese jobs and chinese components. Foreign companies Gamesa, Vestas and GE are salivating on this future potential Chinese goldmine for wind revenues. The reality is that China companies are producing a megawatt of wind for around 1.2 million per megawatt. In USA and Europe, a megawatt of wind costs 2 million. Once can decide if the cheaper chinese wind turbines will equate to cost savings once production revenues are calculated after 20 years of operating timeframes and maintenance costs. However, in the short term, China is going to clean the clocks of USA and European producers when you calculate 1.2 million per megawatt vs 2 million per megawatt for Europe an USA Wind Turbines. A 400 Megawatt China plant will cost 480 million dollars. A 400 Megawatt USA or Europe plant costs 800 million. This is a HUGE DIFFERENCE and this is why Thomas Friedman was sounding the alarm that in the long run, China is once again going to clean our clocks again worldwide in wind production.

APWR if they can figure out how to assemble a wind turbine is going to become a big time wind turbine producer given these statistics of cheap chinese labor vs USA or European counterparts. Vestas and GE will tout their reliablility numbers but China will sell itself an awful lot of wind turbines given the cheaper price. A 1000 Megawatt wind plant (same as a Nuclear plant in USA costing 10 billion) will be around 1.2 billion. A USA or European wind farm of 1000MW would be 2 billion dollars, quite the savings given China needs 174,000 wind turbines by 2025.!!!