“If our product is critical to the infrastructure of our countries . . . then certainly, not for 100% of the installations but certainly for a certain portion of the installations [in
“That means there needs to be an element of knowing how to operate these things and manufacturing these things,” he told the newspaper.
European wind turbine manufacturers have been struggling financially, cutting jobs and closing factories. The large original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have in fact been operating at a loss because of supply chain disruptions and commodities, transport and labour inflation.
The
Europe’s new energy security strategy – REPowerEU – calls for 510 GW of wind energy by 2030, up from 190 GW currently installed. WindEurope, the trade association, projects that this goal is plausible.
Eickholt commented there was “definitely a risk” that the wind turbine industry would come to look like the solar panel industry, where Chinese manufacturers dominate the market and the supply chain, a situation that the
“You have to see that we are meeting Chinese competition across the global markets and also increasingly in Europe,” Eickholt said, noting that Chinese manufacturers can often receive “additional support, typically from national or regional sources”, with ‘innovation funding’ in some cases 10-fold higher than that of the Europeans.
“At the end of the day, we feel that there is an imbalanced battle, or at least we do not have the same level of opportunities here,” he told the FT. “We are asking for a level playing field.”
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