Suzlon sees growing wind power market in China

China will be a future wind energy hotspot, according to Tulsi Tanti, chairman of Suzlon Energy. Wind energy, one of the worst affected sectors of the industry during the economic turmoil of the last two years, is seen to make a revival by 2011.

According to the Delhi News Agency, Tanti said the Chinese government’s aggressive target for renewables, including wind, will make China the centre of action for Suzlon Energy in the coming years.

Suzlon has around 600 mw, or around a fifth of its total manufacturing capacity in China, but has failed to fully utilise the plant which has been running at around 25-30 per cent capacity.

The Chinese government, meanwhile, has set an ambitious goal of increasing the country’s wind power capacity from around 20 gigawatt  at the end of last year to 90 gigawatt by 2015 in its 12th five-year plan.
In comparison, India had around 16 gw of wind capacity at the end of last year.

“We expect our plant to be fully utilised from next year,” Tanti told investors.

Tanti, considered a pioneer of wind energy, said he was not worried about competing with local manufacturers as his own plant was based in China. “We are bringing the Chinese price with German technology. We are quite comfortable that we will get more business from the China market,” he said.

Currently, around half of Suzlon’s 1.55 gw of orders are for India. The company is likely to surpass the 1.2 gw target it had set for the domestic market this year, going by the management’s guidance.

The Indian market, one of the largest in the world for wind turbine firms, is likely to expand to around 3 to 3.6 gw in 2011, Tanti added.