2010-05-11 10:09

A Gamesa wind turbine tower section is unloaded from a ship at a port in Texas. The Spanish company plans to bring its advanced 5-megawatt wind turbine to China, said chairman & CEO Jorge Calvet. [Bloomberg News]

Spanish firm to enter offshore wind power sector next year

BEIJING: Spanish wind turbine maker Gamesa is planning to enter China's offshore wind power sector by the end of next year, a top company official said on Monday.

Gamesa is currently in talks with a German wind power company for a possible acquisition, and will enter China's offshore wind power market by the end of 2011 or the beginning of 2012 if the deal goes through, said Jorge Calvet, chairman & CEO.

If the deal does not take shape, the company has an internal plan to enter the sector during the same period, said Calvet.

Gamesa plans to bring its advanced 5-megawatt (mW) wind turbine to China, he said.

Meanwhile the company on Monday started building a wind turbine plant at Baicheng city in Jilin province, in line with its plan to tap into the fast growing wind power market in China.

The new plant is expected to come on stream in the middle of 2011. It will produce wind turbines with a capacity of 2 mW.

The facility will have annual production capacity of 250 wind turbines in the first phase. Products will be sold to wind farms in Jilin province, the company said in a statement.

"The new plant represents a great opportunity to keep serving our clients as a reliable partner in the province that the government has identified as the one with the highest wind power capacity in China," said Calvet.

China plans to build seven wind power bases, which will have 74 percent of the country's wind power capacity by 2020. Wind power in Jilin is expected to account for 39 percent of the nation's wind power capacity by then, 30 percentage points more than now.

Gamesa installed its first wind turbine in China in 2000, and has since sold over 2,000 turbines. The company employs around 1,000 people in the country.

The company's fast expansion is due to China's rapid development of wind power. The wind power industry in China has been witnessing annual growth rates in excess of 100 percent in the past four years.

China has chosen the sea off eastern Jiangsu province to build the country's first batch of offshore wind power projects, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA). Public bidding for the four projects will start later this month.

Construction of offshore wind power projects will be the main focus of China's wind power industry in the future. As the country boasts rich offshore wind energy resources, China has great potential in this field, said Shi Lishan, deputy director of the new energy department under the NEA.