China: Danish wind turbine registry serves as a door opener in China

The Danish wind turbine registry which includes monthly production data for all wind turbines in Denmark attracts considerable interest in China as the country aims to develop the performance of its fleet of onshore wind turbines.

The relative increase in the output of Danish wind turbines over time as well as the life time of the Danish onshore wind fleet is thoroughly registered for every wind turbine in Denmark and proves a strong development in both quality and performance. The increase in Danish wind turbines performance has drawn attention from the Chinese wind industry, which is investing heavily in onshore wind to reduce the country’s carbon emissions and air pollution. A similar relative improvement of output from Chinese onshore wind would make a significant difference.

A new Danish-Chinese pilot project called QualityWind focuses on improving the quality and performance of the largest fleet of onshore wind turbines in the world. The total capacity of Chinese onshore wind has now passed 115,000 MW. Huge investments have been made and the attention towards performance of the Chinese turbines is increasing, both from government and from owners.

Around 50 Danish suppliers and sub-suppliers to the wind industry have established businesses in China. Their quality products and services have played a strong facilitating role in the well-performing Danish onshore wind portfolio. QualityWind aims to showcase that this supply chain can make a positive difference in China as well.

QualityWind intends to do a thorough site inspection of a few selected underperforming wind farms in China, aiming to come up with proposals for performance and quality improvements with the use of competencies and knowledge of the Danish wind supply chain present in the Chinese market.

The project cooperates with China’s National Energy Administration as well as selected owners of wind farms. Site inspections will be carried out during the summer of 2015 with a view to present proposals for upgrades shortly after. It will then be the owners’ assessment of business cases which determines implementation of upgrades.

QualityWind is a pilot public-private partnership implemented in a close cooperation between the Danish Energy Agency, the Danish Trade Council China and the Danish wind supply chain in China. The project finishes by end 2015. 

Erik Kjær
AC-medarbejder
Center for Global Rådgivning og Forhandling
Tlf.: 41 18 84 29
ekj@ens.dk