General Electric to Double Deliveries of China Wind Turbines

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co., the world’s biggest maker of power-generation equipment, will double deliveries of wind turbines to Chinese customers for two years, benefiting from government-funded expansion, an executive said.

Shipments will jump to 320 this year from 159 in 2008, and double again to 600 in 2010, Steve Fludder, head of GE’s environmental product campaign, said in an interview in Beijing.

China, the fifth-largest producer of wind power, may buoy GE’s renewable-energy sales after larger markets in the U.S. and Europe were hurt by the global credit crunch, Fludder said. The country may triple wind power capacity after increasing it to more than 10 gigawatts last year, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on Jan. 15.

Wind projects in China are “basically funded on the state’s balance sheet,” Fludder said Feb. 20. The credit crunch had a “huge impact” on U.S. and European demand as private funding for new projects dried up, he said.

GE’s wind-turbine deliveries may drop about 14 percent globally this year to 2,800, the Fairfield, Connecticut-based company said last month. GE held about 7 percent of China’s market share in 2007, less than Copenhagen-based Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the global leader, according to Dave Dai at CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets.

The market leader was domestic producer Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., with 23 percent, Dai said in Hong Kong.

“China seems to be just about doubling its capacity every year, and GE has a decent market share,” said Dai.

China added more than 4 gigawatts of wind turbines last year for a total installed capacity of more than 10 gigawatts, Xinhua had said, citing Zhang Guobao, director of the National Energy Administration. The country “won’t need many years” for installed capacity to as much as triple to 30 gigawatts, the world’s biggest, Zhang had said.

The U.S. installed a record 8,300 megawatts, or 8.3 gigawatts, of wind energy last year, overtaking Germany as the largest market. GE is the world’s second-biggest maker of wind turbines and the largest supplier to the U.S.