Beijing’s ‘astonishing’ low costs put European rivals in peril

British waters could be flooded with cheap Chinese wind turbines in the future because the cost of Beijing building the machines has plummeted so fast, a new study has warned. The Telegraph has the story.

Offshore turbines can now be built in China for roughly a third of the price of those produced by companies such as Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems or Siemens Gamesa, which are major suppliers to Britain, the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies (OIES) said.

This means British offshore wind farms may be forced to embrace Chinese-made machines instead of European models because they are cheaper.

Michal Meiden, the institute’s head of China energy research, said Beijing had achieved an “astonishing” reduction in the cost of turbines, reducing them from $1,200 (£915) per kilowatt in 2019 to less than $420 today.

In Europe, by contrast, turbine prices were last year still above $1,000 per kilowatt – a figure that would make a mockery of Energy Secretary Ed Miliband’s pledge to start manufacturing turbines in the UK.

“In Europe there is a concern that if these cost advantages stem from state subsidies, short-term gains would be undermined by longer-term ruin for the European industry,” Meiden said.

The report also warned that only China may have the manufacturing capacity to supply all the machines the UK and Europe want to install to meet targets for renewable energy.

Read the full story here.