In recent weeks, a large number of offshore wind power development plans in Europe and the United States have been canceled, because it is difficult to bear the construction costs of turbines, cables and other wind power equipment and product prices have risen sharply, and even the quality of some key equipment has been put into question. This makes a lot of high-profile clean energy industry to promote the western countries to re-examine the problems faced by their own industry chain. Europe and the United States in the field of clean energy has been associated with Chinese enterprises too closely discussed, and even for wind power and other industries rough implementation of the "de-Chinaization" means, now have to face the consequences.

　　Cost soaring quality in doubt

　　According to Bloomberg reported on the 7th, Germany's Siemens Energy in the latest quarterly earnings report, said the quality of the wind turbine power generation group led to a loss of 2.2 billion euros, which makes the company's total loss this year reached 4.5 billion euros or so. Siemens Energy withdrew its fiscal year 2023 earnings guidance in June due to faster-than-expected wear and tear on turbine components produced by Siemens Gamesa.

　　For its part, Siemens Energy said the Spanish unit of its wind-electronics company Gamesa had found "more serious than expected" quality defects in its onshore wind turbines. Reuters said the problems it faced "affect 15-30 percent of the world's more than 132GW of turbines," with a total generating capacity equivalent to about 132 nuclear power plants. Bloomberg's analysis suggests that Siemens Energy's problems may reflect fundamental, systemic design flaws in wind turbines.

　　Swedish energy giant Vattenfall announced in July that it would halt development of the Norfolk Boreas project off the coast of Norfolk, England, because of rising costs. Not only that, but Vattenfall warned that the UK government would not be able to meet its wind power targets without improving incentives for offshore wind projects. The company said that project costs have soared by 40% due to factors such as inflation, tight supply chains and rising wages.

　　A similar situation was seen in the U.S., where a subsidiary of Spanish clean-energy developer Iberdrola SA agreed to cancel a contract for power from a planned wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts, USA. Danish developer Orsted A/S also dropped a bid for offshore wind in Rhode Island, mainly because rising costs made the project too expensive.

　　"Consequences of "de-Chinaization

　　According to some analysts, Europe and the US have big clean energy ambitions, but their own wind supply chains are already bottlenecked. According to the American Clean Energy Association, onshore wind installations halved in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year, the slowest quarter in the last four years. Offshore foundation manufacturers and installation vessels have been fully booked in recent years. The wind industry has had to buy large amounts of equipment from China. Germany's Wirtschaftswoche, citing an analysis by industry insiders, said that 65% to 80% of European wind power relies on suppliers in Asia.

　　Chen Jia, an independent international strategy researcher, analyzed to the Global Times reporter on the 9th that some of the recent wind power projects in Europe and the United States have been blocked and their different new energy development goals. The United States to promote the development of the country's new energy industry chain is to seize the global green development and the new energy industry chain of the commanding heights, which also prompted its continuous pressure on China's clean energy industry, and joint allies "de-Chinaization". In contrast, the EU's development of new energy is more focused on making up for its lack of energy resource endowment, especially in the current Russian-Ukrainian conflict affecting the European energy supply context.

　　Chen Jia analysis, nearly a decade, Europe is China's new energy industry chain development of major partners and key markets. But because of the United States to "de-Chinaization" or "de-risk" as a pretext for pressure, the momentum of the new energy industry chain cooperation between China and Europe has been undermined.

　　Chen Jia said, on the one hand, the level of financial returns of the EU wind power projects continue to decline, many projects rely on social benefits to support the hard work. On the other hand, the "de-Chinaization" led to long-term dependence on China's cost-effective wind power supply chain of the EU wind power industry encountered more challenges, which has been highly pressurized by the high inflation expectations of a large number of wind power projects, the financial cost of a further surge. As for the United States, the financial indicators behind its wind power projects are also very risky, is a serious industry chain development hidden danger.

　　Chinese manufacturers have caught up

　　China has the largest installed wind power capacity in the world, more than twice that of the second-ranked U.S., according to international statistics agency Statista. By 2022, the Chinese wind power market will have a cumulative installed capacity of 395 gigawatts. In that year, the cumulative global installed capacity of wind power reached 906 gigawatts, a significant increase in the last few decades. According to China's National Energy Administration, the country's installed wind power capacity will grow by 11.2 percent year-on-year in 2022.

　　According to a report by the "German Editorial Network", Chinese suppliers have a huge price advantage for their products. "For onshore wind turbines, they are about half the price of their European competitors' products," an insider reveals. Europe also risks losing its technological leadership. According to Paul Wendling, an expert at the consulting firm Prognos, "there is hardly any quality difference between Chinese and European wind power manufacturers".

　　The European media has recently paid a lot of attention to the new breakthroughs in Chinese wind turbines. "The world's largest wind turbine is in operation in China", said the Swiss Watson 6, adding that a new milestone was reached in July when a 16-megawatt turbine was successfully commissioned for the first time at an offshore wind farm off Fujian province. The generator's tower is 152 meters high, each blade is 123 meters long and weighs 54 tons, which has stepped up to the tip of the global pyramid of wind turbine size. And before, comparing generator size is something that only happens between European and American companies.

　　Germany's "Economic Weekly" said that Europe hopes to achieve large-scale wind power expansion, but Western suppliers because of price and supply speed and other reasons, it is difficult to meet market demand, which has the role of Chinese enterprises, Chinese companies have also landed in Europe. In Taranto, Italy, with the help of Chinese company Ming Yang Intelligent Energy, Italy realized its first offshore wind power project. The first 10 units can supply electricity to tens of thousands of people annually.