On October 15, the parliamentary election will be held in Poland. Citizens could vote several times on that day. Yesterday, the parliament cleared the way for a referendum on the day of the election. It is a heartfelt project of the nationalist PiS party. Today, the parliament will also vote on the referendum questions.
And one of the four questions in particular is a tough one. It relates to the EU asylum compromise and the mandatory admission of refugees. Specifically, the question is supposed to read, “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the mechanism of mandatory admission imposed by the European bureaucracy?” Could the question have been phrased in a more tendentious way? The other questions in the planned referendum relate to the privatization of state enterprises, raising the retirement age, and fortification on the border with Belarus.
No wonder the opposition is critical of the referendum. Yesterday, for example, the opposition leader Donald Tusk of the liberal-conservative Platforma Obywatelska (PO) party. He found, “This referendum is invalid in the deepest and broadest sense of the word. Some claim it is a political game, but PiS is campaigning for itself with state funds.” A perfectly obvious conclusion since the outcome of the referendum would have no influence whatsoever on the decision-making process within the EU anyway.
Has anyone heard of Mingyang Smart Energy? In July, the company based in the Sichuan province announced the first commercial installation of its MySE 16-260 mega-turbine at the company’s Qingzhou 4 offshore wind farm in the South China Sea. According to Mingyang, MySE 16-260 can generate 67 million kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to the consumption of 80,000 people. In January, Mingyang also presented prototypes of the world’s largest wind turbine, with a diameter of 280 meters and an output of 18 megawatts (MW). Such giants are only suited for offshore wind farms, and that is precisely where Mingyang is now stepping up its involvement, including with European partners.
For instance, Mingyang equipped the 30-megawatt Beleolico offshore wind farm off southern Italy in 2022. Although Beleolico is small, it is Europe’s first offshore wind farm to use turbines from China. In June, Mingyang also formed a strategic partnership with the UK’s Opergy Group, primarily to drive the development of offshore wind farms in the UK. “The UK is a pivotal market for the expansion of our clean energy portfolio,” said Ma Jing, International CEO of Mingyang. Back home, Mingyang is also building a wind farm off the coast of Guangdong in partnership with BASF.
However, such partnerships have been the big exception so far. According to the industry association, WindEurope in Brussels, nearly all European wind farms use European-made turbines: “There are over 250 factories around Europe making turbines and components.” The top dogs are Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and the wind division of GE.
But they could now face competition from the Far East. Just as in photovoltaics ten years ago and more recently in heat pumps, Chinese manufacturers are also pushing into the global wind power markets. And no other country builds as many wind turbines yearly as the People’s Republic.
As the consultancy agency Trivium Netzero explains, China is deliberately marketing its renewable technology overseas. Recently, at the Central Asia Summit as well as at summit meetings with Brazil and Saudi Arabia, China has signed agreements on the construction of wind farms, among other things. For instance, Shanghai-based private company Universal Energy signed a contract to build a 500 MW wind farm in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Universal Energy is also one of the largest renewable investors in Kazakhstan, according to Trivium Netzero.
Trivium experts say that tapping into promising markets such as Uzbekistan and Brazil is helping China’s clean-tech suppliers to build further economies of scale and cost over Western competitors. And they expect such initiatives to grow even further. Beijing does not want to rely solely on EU or US sales markets.
Because the EU is a promising, but not an easy market for China’s turbine manufacturers. Brussels aims to increase the share of wind power in European electricity consumption from 17 percent today to 43 percent by 2030. According to WindEurope, this means building 30 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity every year. However, both the EU and manufacturers are struggling to build the wind turbines necessary for this feat themselves as much as possible.
The problem: According to WindEurope, the European wind supply chain is already experiencing bottlenecks: “Offshore foundation manufacturers and installation vessels are fully booked for several years. The wind industry is having to buy power cables, gearboxes and even steel towers from China.” Although new factories are being built, it is not enough for the massive expansion envisaged.
The sector is nervous. Because turbine manufacturers like Mingyang are receiving their first orders from Europe thanks to these bottlenecks. And this, as WindEurope criticizes in a position paper, “not least with their cheaper turbines, looser standards and unconventional financial terms.” Therefore, the association is urging the EU for more options for non-price criteria in auctions for wind power projects. The first draft of the EU’s planned Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) aimed at strengthening supply chains for the energy transition is too weak in this regard, it says and needs to be improved. “There is a very real risk that the expansion of wind energy Europe will be made in China not in Europe.”
Some partnerships make sense because of the urgency of new projects and supply bottlenecks. The German energy company RWE has ordered 104 wind turbines from Danish company Vestas for the Nordseecluster, an offshore wind farm with a capacity of 1.6 GW, and 104 foundations from China’s Dajin Offshore. Both have been chosen as preferred suppliers, RWE said. Dajin Offshore is the largest private Chinese offshore foundation, transition piece and offshore tower manufacturer, according to RWE.
“European wind should continue to draw from China’s industrial base and engineering expertise,” writes Joseph Webster, China expert at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, adding that Europe must also ensure it remains competitive. “Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, GE, and other Western wind turbine manufacturers are struggling to reach profitability.” A well-known problem case is Siemens Energy, which has long been in the red with its renewable energy business at its Spanish wind power subsidiary Gamesa. A few weeks ago, Siemens Energy had to acknowledge quality problems at Gamesa, including rotor blades.
So far, however, the EU does not import large quantities of completed wind turbines from China. International turbine trade is naturally limited due to the enormous size of the turbines, along with transport costs, says Webster. And unlike photovoltaics a decade ago, wind turbine manufacturers now receive political support. “Given these technical, economic, and political factors, there is a low risk that Chinese wind manufacturing firms will be able to undercut European wind turbine manufacturers in their home market,” the expert believes.
The Europeans should be cautious regarding raw materials, especially with rare earth minerals, which are also required for wind turbines. He recommends the EU diversify raw material supplies and elsewhere to continue cooperating with China, albeit with increased vigilance. The principle of de-risking also applies here.
When political scientist Melanie Müller began her research on the 2011 climate conference in South Africa, the consensus among experts was: Africa has other problems than the climate. Yet the African environmental movement is often underestimated, she finds. “In South Africa, for example, the right to a clean environment is enshrined in the constitution.” With her doctorate, which she completed in 2016 at Freie Universität in Berlin, Melanie Müller became an expert on Africa. Today, she works in the Africa and Middle East Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
Her areas of expertise are the supply chain responsibilities of sub-Saharan African states and commodity governance – the interplay of companies, initiatives and governments in the extraction and trade of raw materials. In her work, Müller repeatedly finds shortcomings in the cooperation between the Global North and African states. She says this is evident, for example, in sustainability standards that Europe demands of African states but which they cannot implement easily.
“We have failed to engage countries in the Global South early on in our discussions about sustainability and trade,” she says. This is also relevant for supply chains to Germany. If standards become too high to monitor for countries of origin, it makes exporting to us more difficult.
Melanie Müller discovers parallels to the German energy transition in her research on raw material supply chains. In the South African region of Mpumalanga, people and industry are just as dependent on coal mining as was long the case in North Rhine-Westphalia. “People there are asking the same questions: How is a transformation away from coal achievable and how can new jobs be created at the same time?” says Müller. The difference between Germany and South Africa, she says, is that these questions are even stronger contested there due to a higher unemployment rate.
Despite international guidelines from the OECD, voluntary initiatives and certifications, the risk of violating sustainability principles or human rights remains high in mining, simply because it involves profound interference with nature and the work is often hard. “The dirtiest part in metals supply chains is the mining – which mostly takes place in the global South,” Müller said.
However, the risks can be minimized through continuous government controls on safety and working conditions. Sustainable supply chains could also create an incentive to make the extraction of raw materials ecologically compatible. This can be very good for business because mining resources in a way that is as socially and environmentally compatible as possible is more attractive to international trading partners.
To promote countries like South Africa, supply chains would have to be shortened. However, this would require promoting the processing of raw materials locally. “In this way, African countries could not only mine the raw material but also offer such processed products on the global market,” says Müller. The problem: This expansion is expensive. Chinese companies have been investing in African transformation projects for years.
After hesitant investments by Europe, the competitive pressure is now high. But Müller still sees opportunities for European investors. “I experience repeatedly at African mining trade fairs that the demand for European know-how and European quality is high.” Svenja Schlicht
On October 15, the parliamentary election will be held in Poland. Citizens could vote several times on that day. Yesterday, the parliament cleared the way for a referendum on the day of the election. It is a heartfelt project of the nationalist PiS party. Today, the parliament will also vote on the referendum questions.
And one of the four questions in particular is a tough one. It relates to the EU asylum compromise and the mandatory admission of refugees. Specifically, the question is supposed to read, “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the mechanism of mandatory admission imposed by the European bureaucracy?” Could the question have been phrased in a more tendentious way? The other questions in the planned referendum relate to the privatization of state enterprises, raising the retirement age, and fortification on the border with Belarus.
No wonder the opposition is critical of the referendum. Yesterday, for example, the opposition leader Donald Tusk of the liberal-conservative Platforma Obywatelska (PO) party. He found, “This referendum is invalid in the deepest and broadest sense of the word. Some claim it is a political game, but PiS is campaigning for itself with state funds.” A perfectly obvious conclusion since the outcome of the referendum would have no influence whatsoever on the decision-making process within the EU anyway.
Has anyone heard of Mingyang Smart Energy? In July, the company based in the Sichuan province announced the first commercial installation of its MySE 16-260 mega-turbine at the company’s Qingzhou 4 offshore wind farm in the South China Sea. According to Mingyang, MySE 16-260 can generate 67 million kWh of electricity annually, equivalent to the consumption of 80,000 people. In January, Mingyang also presented prototypes of the world’s largest wind turbine, with a diameter of 280 meters and an output of 18 megawatts (MW). Such giants are only suited for offshore wind farms, and that is precisely where Mingyang is now stepping up its involvement, including with European partners.
For instance, Mingyang equipped the 30-megawatt Beleolico offshore wind farm off southern Italy in 2022. Although Beleolico is small, it is Europe’s first offshore wind farm to use turbines from China. In June, Mingyang also formed a strategic partnership with the UK’s Opergy Group, primarily to drive the development of offshore wind farms in the UK. “The UK is a pivotal market for the expansion of our clean energy portfolio,” said Ma Jing, International CEO of Mingyang. Back home, Mingyang is also building a wind farm off the coast of Guangdong in partnership with BASF.
However, such partnerships have been the big exception so far. According to the industry association, WindEurope in Brussels, nearly all European wind farms use European-made turbines: “There are over 250 factories around Europe making turbines and components.” The top dogs are Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and the wind division of GE.
But they could now face competition from the Far East. Just as in photovoltaics ten years ago and more recently in heat pumps, Chinese manufacturers are also pushing into the global wind power markets. And no other country builds as many wind turbines yearly as the People’s Republic.
As the consultancy agency Trivium Netzero explains, China is deliberately marketing its renewable technology overseas. Recently, at the Central Asia Summit as well as at summit meetings with Brazil and Saudi Arabia, China has signed agreements on the construction of wind farms, among other things. For instance, Shanghai-based private company Universal Energy signed a contract to build a 500 MW wind farm in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Universal Energy is also one of the largest renewable investors in Kazakhstan, according to Trivium Netzero.
Trivium experts say that tapping into promising markets such as Uzbekistan and Brazil is helping China’s clean-tech suppliers to build further economies of scale and cost over Western competitors. And they expect such initiatives to grow even further. Beijing does not want to rely solely on EU or US sales markets.
Because the EU is a promising, but not an easy market for China’s turbine manufacturers. Brussels aims to increase the share of wind power in European electricity consumption from 17 percent today to 43 percent by 2030. According to WindEurope, this means building 30 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity every year. However, both the EU and manufacturers are struggling to build the wind turbines necessary for this feat themselves as much as possible.
The problem: According to WindEurope, the European wind supply chain is already experiencing bottlenecks: “Offshore foundation manufacturers and installation vessels are fully booked for several years. The wind industry is having to buy power cables, gearboxes and even steel towers from China.” Although new factories are being built, it is not enough for the massive expansion envisaged.
The sector is nervous. Because turbine manufacturers like Mingyang are receiving their first orders from Europe thanks to these bottlenecks. And this, as WindEurope criticizes in a position paper, “not least with their cheaper turbines, looser standards and unconventional financial terms.” Therefore, the association is urging the EU for more options for non-price criteria in auctions for wind power projects. The first draft of the EU’s planned Net-Zero Industry Act (NZIA) aimed at strengthening supply chains for the energy transition is too weak in this regard, it says and needs to be improved. “There is a very real risk that the expansion of wind energy Europe will be made in China not in Europe.”
Some partnerships make sense because of the urgency of new projects and supply bottlenecks. The German energy company RWE has ordered 104 wind turbines from Danish company Vestas for the Nordseecluster, an offshore wind farm with a capacity of 1.6 GW, and 104 foundations from China’s Dajin Offshore. Both have been chosen as preferred suppliers, RWE said. Dajin Offshore is the largest private Chinese offshore foundation, transition piece and offshore tower manufacturer, according to RWE.
“European wind should continue to draw from China’s industrial base and engineering expertise,” writes Joseph Webster, China expert at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center, adding that Europe must also ensure it remains competitive. “Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, GE, and other Western wind turbine manufacturers are struggling to reach profitability.” A well-known problem case is Siemens Energy, which has long been in the red with its renewable energy business at its Spanish wind power subsidiary Gamesa. A few weeks ago, Siemens Energy had to acknowledge quality problems at Gamesa, including rotor blades.
So far, however, the EU does not import large quantities of completed wind turbines from China. International turbine trade is naturally limited due to the enormous size of the turbines, along with transport costs, says Webster. And unlike photovoltaics a decade ago, wind turbine manufacturers now receive political support. “Given these technical, economic, and political factors, there is a low risk that Chinese wind manufacturing firms will be able to undercut European wind turbine manufacturers in their home market,” the expert believes.
The Europeans should be cautious regarding raw materials, especially with rare earth minerals, which are also required for wind turbines. He recommends the EU diversify raw material supplies and elsewhere to continue cooperating with China, albeit with increased vigilance. The principle of de-risking also applies here.
When political scientist Melanie Müller began her research on the 2011 climate conference in South Africa, the consensus among experts was: Africa has other problems than the climate. Yet the African environmental movement is often underestimated, she finds. “In South Africa, for example, the right to a clean environment is enshrined in the constitution.” With her doctorate, which she completed in 2016 at Freie Universität in Berlin, Melanie Müller became an expert on Africa. Today, she works in the Africa and Middle East Research Group at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
Her areas of expertise are the supply chain responsibilities of sub-Saharan African states and commodity governance – the interplay of companies, initiatives and governments in the extraction and trade of raw materials. In her work, Müller repeatedly finds shortcomings in the cooperation between the Global North and African states. She says this is evident, for example, in sustainability standards that Europe demands of African states but which they cannot implement easily.
“We have failed to engage countries in the Global South early on in our discussions about sustainability and trade,” she says. This is also relevant for supply chains to Germany. If standards become too high to monitor for countries of origin, it makes exporting to us more difficult.
Melanie Müller discovers parallels to the German energy transition in her research on raw material supply chains. In the South African region of Mpumalanga, people and industry are just as dependent on coal mining as was long the case in North Rhine-Westphalia. “People there are asking the same questions: How is a transformation away from coal achievable and how can new jobs be created at the same time?” says Müller. The difference between Germany and South Africa, she says, is that these questions are even stronger contested there due to a higher unemployment rate.
Despite international guidelines from the OECD, voluntary initiatives and certifications, the risk of violating sustainability principles or human rights remains high in mining, simply because it involves profound interference with nature and the work is often hard. “The dirtiest part in metals supply chains is the mining – which mostly takes place in the global South,” Müller said.
However, the risks can be minimized through continuous government controls on safety and working conditions. Sustainable supply chains could also create an incentive to make the extraction of raw materials ecologically compatible. This can be very good for business because mining resources in a way that is as socially and environmentally compatible as possible is more attractive to international trading partners.
To promote countries like South Africa, supply chains would have to be shortened. However, this would require promoting the processing of raw materials locally. “In this way, African countries could not only mine the raw material but also offer such processed products on the global market,” says Müller. The problem: This expansion is expensive. Chinese companies have been investing in African transformation projects for years.
After hesitant investments by Europe, the competitive pressure is now high. But Müller still sees opportunities for European investors. “I experience repeatedly at African mining trade fairs that the demand for European know-how and European quality is high.” Svenja Schlicht
