Goldwind signs $5.5 billion for wind energy

Goldwind’s latest agreement comes after it received a 10 billion-yuan credit facility from Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in November. China’s state-controlled banks are signing billions of dollars of credit lines with wind energy and solar power manufacturers including Sinovel Wind Group and Suntech Power Holdings to fund capacity expansion and overseas business.

“China’s wind market nearly doubled every year from 2006 to 2010, and domestic turbine makers kept expanding capacity when growth stalled in 2011,” Charles Yonts, an analyst at CLSA in Hong Kong, said. “They will be working off the excesses for a couple years and pushing exports, especially to emerging markets.”

China Development Bank, which offered a $6 billion credit facility to Goldwind in 2010 for international expansion, loaned about 93.8 billion yuan to clean energy and a group of energy- saving projects that year, according to London-based New Energy Finance.

Goldwind and domestic wind turbines rivals are seeking orders overseas to overcome slowing sales growth in the second-largest economy after the government tightened criteria for approving new projects. Goldwind bought two 10-megawatt wind farms in Montana this month and has orders in seven other US states. Sinovel said it expects 2011 earnings to fall by more than 50 per cent as competition at home and abroad dragged down prices.

Renewable energy is one of seven strategic industries receiving government support as the China attempts to diversify away from coal, which fuels 70 per cent of the economy.

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