Last year, the wind power industry witnessed investment frenzy. An estimated five billion Yuan worth of new turbines began churning out electricity.

The big five state-owned power groups - Huaneng, Datang, Huadian, China Power Investment and Guodian - have all invested in wind, as have Guangdong Nuclear Power and hydro-power giant Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development.

Shenhua Group, a coal-mining company, has set itself a target of 1,000 megawatts of wind power capacity by 2010.

Petroleum companies are keen too. China National Offshore Oil Corp has made offshore wind power the focus of its renewable energy investment strategy and plans to bid for a project east of Shanghai.

At the end of last year, the mainland had 59 wind farms with 1,854 generators. Its installed generation capacity surged 65.6 per cent to 1,266 MW, making it the world's tenth-largest wind power producing nation.

China's capacity may surpass 2,000 MW by the end of this year, according to the Chinese Wind Energy Association which represents both wind farm operators and equipment suppliers.

This is negligible, however, compared with the entire power industry's expected capacity of 575,000 MW by the end of this year.

Beijing has set ambitious targets for the wind power industry - 5,000 MW of generating capacity by 2010 and 30,000 MW by 2020.

To reach the 2020 goal, some 200 billion Yuan of investment will be required.

The National Development and Reform Commission's targets originally were 4,000 MW for 2010 and 20,000 MW for 2020 but state leaders prevailed upon it to accelerate the pace to help ease air pollution.

Source:佚名