In August 2025, a German offshore wind project in the North Sea decided to cancel a deal to buy turbines from Chinese wind power giant Mingyang. A year after the agreement had been signed, developer Luxcara chose instead to buy from German firm Siemens Gamesa.
The official statement from Luxcara described it as a commercial decision but some in the media have pinned it on “political resistance” to Chinese wind manufacturers.
Mingyang found another foothold, this time in the UK, when it signed a strategic partnership with UK energy generator and supplier Octopus a month later. The two parties plan to use Octopus software and Mingyang turbines to develop up to 6 GW of onshore wind.
Qin Haiyan, secretary-general of the Chinese Wind Energy Association, says Chinese wind firms are treated differently to their European rivals depending on a country’s industrial policy, security concerns and geopolitical alignment – and warned they must be fully prepared for those risks. “Firms should be proactive in using legal and lobbying tools to advocate for their interests within the local legal and political frameworks,” he told Dialogue Earth.
Anders Hove, a senior research fellow at think-tank the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told Dialogue Earth there haven’t been clear signals on whether European countries will buy Chinese offshore turbines. This means European project owners need to communicate with their governments and make their own decisions.
Future governments, he emphasised, may drop support for approved projects. Given the long project lifecycles in Europe, political stability, or lack thereof, is particularly important. Even so, Chinese firms are looking to take advantage of the European market’s strong long-term potential.
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Firms should be proactive in using legal and lobbying tools to advocate for their interests within the local legal and political frameworks.
Qin Haiyan, secretary-general, Chinese Wind Energy Association
Chinese wind power blows in
China’s wind power sector is a global leader, accounting for almost 80 gigawatts (GW), or about 70 per cent of the 109 GW of new onshore wind power installed in 2024, according to a report from the Global Wind Energy Council.
Chinese companies led the global wind turbine manufacturing market in 2024, with Goldwind, Envision and Mingyang for the first time taking all three top spots, found a report from consultancy Wood Mackenzie.
This is largely due to robust domestic demand. Outside of China, European wind turbine makers such as Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and Nordex still lead almost everywhere.
But as competition at home intensifies and more manufacturing capacity comes online, the Chinese firms are shifting to selling overseas. China’s wind power exports grew more than 70 per cent year-on-year in 2024, with 26.1 GW of overseas orders won, customs data shows. At the end of the first half of 2025 that figure already stood at 19.5 GW.
This international expansion is concentrated in emerging markets. Figures from Rystad Energy show that since 2020 Chinese manufacturers have increased their share of orders from Central Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America from less than 30 per cent to over 50 per cent.
Those are mostly onshore wind orders. However, China builds the world’s biggest offshore wind turbines, and has a complete supply chain and large-scale manufacturing capacity. In other words, it has the industrial base needed for an attempt on the European market.
Europe’s wind power concerns
Local firms have long dominated the European market, with a market share of 85 per cent of wind power equipment in use on the continent, rising to 94 per cent for offshore wind, according to a 2024 EU policy briefing.
The EU has set a target of 42.5 per cent renewables in the energy mix by 2030. Industry association WindEurope estimates this will require 425 GW of wind power capacity, with 86-89 GW of that to come from offshore wind. While the UK, which had 15.9 GW of offshore wind in 2024, is aiming for 43-50 GW by 2030.
But slow rollout is a major obstacle to Europe realising its ambitious goals.
WindEurope calculated the EU needed to install an annual average of 36 GW of wind power from 2025 to 2030 to hit its goals. In 2024, it realised only 12.9 GW. At current speeds, WindEurope estimates the EU will be able to build about 23 GW of wind power each year over the next five years.
According to the group’s analysis, Europe is not building enough wind farms due to slow and complicated permitting processes, a lack of grid capacity and slow electrification. The latter means the shift from burning fossil fuels to using electricity to fuel cars, central heating and other tech. As an example, a 1 GW offshore wind farm in Germany completed in the first half of 2025 won’t be connected to the national grid until this year.
According to Anders Hove, while many blame particular countries or policy bottlenecks, the bigger problem is long-term uncertainties eroding industry confidence. “There are lots of variables, which means the industry can’t predict annual demand. What the slow pace of installation reflects is those systemic uncertainties, rather than any particular national issues,” he says.
He says that post-pandemic inflation, especially the rising cost of materials and labour, has stopped many companies from bidding for contracts. More importantly, some European governments have had unrealistic cost expectations for offshore wind, which is more sensitive to financing and material costs than onshore. This has led to national capacity auctions failing to attract bids, or to them being delayed or redesigned.
Where Chinese manufacturers are seeing a steadily growing domestic market, European players are struggling with low demand. “If your customers aren’t buying this year or next, you can’t expand, nor can you gain practical experience and work out how to cut costs,” says Hove. “Inadequate demand leaves the entire supply chain sitting idle.”
The low-cost myth
Chinese turbines tend to be less expensive than European ones, and the gap is particularly apparent in offshore wind.
In 2024, offshore wind power cost US$3,389 per kilowatt in Europe, more than twice the US$1,520 cost in China, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
This isn’t just down to government subsidies and economies of scale but also Chinese innovation.
Chinese companies are leading the world in offshore turbines, manufacturing longer blades and taller towers. Dongfang started testing a 26 MW turbine in late 2025 and Mingyang has announced a 50 MW dual-rotor design concept that features two 25 MW modules on a V-shaped tower. Meanwhile, European manufacturers are focused on machines around 15 MW.
Chinese wind power projects may cost less to develop domestically, but these advantages necessarily translate directly to overseas markets. According to data from BloombergNEF, Chinese wind power turbines sell overseas for 20 per cent less than the US or European equivalents, and turbine costs account for 30-43 per cent of offshore wind project costs. But Hove points out that in European projects there are a lot of hidden costs besides the turbines.
A report co-authored by Hove says larger projects and turbines are helping to reduce the cost of offshore wind in Europe, but making everything bigger has broader consequences. One of these is for shipping costs, which increase. The shipping industry, meanwhile, is having to decarbonise, which will further increase the cost of long-distance transport, the report finds.
Financing costs are also a key variable. According to the report, banks can impose higher rates of interest, stricter covenants, or extra warranty bonds on projects using Chinese equipment, offsetting some of the capital cost advantages.
Localising manufacture
In response to these challenges, some Chinese companies are planning to set up factories in Europe. Mingyang, for example, announced it would build the UK’s biggest turbine factory in Scotland.
The GBP 1.5 billion project would create 1,500 jobs, according to Mingyang, and is expected to be in operation by the end of 2028. The idea is to make the towers and blades locally while transporting the gearboxes and bearings, which are easier to ship, from China. This would reduce shipping costs and help meets Europe’s preference for localisation.
Qin Haiyan says such “hybrid supply chains” are essential if Chinese companies are to shift from being product exporters to overseas manufacturers. Deeper cooperation with local developers and industrial chains will allow Chinese companies to make full use of local resources such as talent, capital, technology, and increase European manufacturing capacity, all of which will increase overall project efficiency, he says. But it remains to be seen if competitiveness can be maintained, and local jobs created, when working in a higher-cost environment.
The project has not yet been finalised. Although Mingyang has identified the Port of Ardersier as its preferred site and has held discussions with the UK and Scottish governments for several years, details such as the scale of investment, construction plans and final approval are subject to confirmation. Debates in the UK over energy security, scrutiny of Chinese investment and broader geopolitical concerns have added further uncertainty.
Hove warns that while Europe wants to encourage localisation of manufacturing, China manufactures 70 per cent of the global supply of key components like gearboxes, turbine blades and castings. These “European-made” turbines will still, in large part, rely on Chinese supply chains.
Working with China
To ease supply chain bottlenecks and cost pressures, some European firms have started looking at carefully delimited cooperation with Chinese manufacturers.
Hove gave Mingyang’s partnership with the UK’s Octopus as an example. Octopus will have control of the software and management system, with the Chinese party just supplying the turbines.
Octopus didn’t comment on the project specifics but told Dialogue Earth by email it is in conversation with Mingyang on how to roll out hardware to speed up the UK energy transition and bring down costs for bill payers. From Mingyang, Dialogue Earth received no response following its request for comment.
He points out that Europe’s concerns over Chinese equipment are often more about reputational risks than actual technology or security concerns.
So far, very few wind farms in Europe, offshore or onshore, are using turbines sourced from Chinese manufacturers. China-made turbines are still being evaluated and tested.
Qin Haiyan says escalating commercial competition into trade protectionism will only increase wind project costs and slow rollout – ultimately reducing what countries can do to respond to climate change. Multiple studies have shown that protectionism could slow expansion of the wind market, increase costs, and reduce its long-term financial sustainability.
Hove says that while there is not yet any large-scale China-Europe cooperation, even the presence of competitors would be enough to shake the European market out of deadlock. “Just the possibility of Chinese firms getting involved, that potential competition, has already done a great deal to invigorate the supply chains,” he says.
This article was originally published on Dialogue Earth under a Creative Commons licence.
