Wind power industry: slowing down in order to go further

China's wind power industry has already bid farewell to the past 'arrogant and sudden progress' type of growth, and it has entered a period of steady development. Standing at the threshold of the New Year of the Dragon, Wu Gang, chairman and chief executive officer of Xinjiang Goldwind Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview that during the "12th Five-Year Plan" period, the wind power industry will continue to develop, but development will become more rational. .

“The pace of slowing down is to go further and better.” Wu Gang believes that with the increasingly rational development of China’s wind power industry, wind power companies must achieve breakthroughs and transformations in the areas of business management, technological innovation, and value, and actively promote “walking”. Go out strategy and build a first-rate wind power company with core competitiveness in the international market.

"Slow down" is to "go further"

“The current slowing pace of development is not necessarily a bad thing for the future of wind power industry.” Wu Gang told reporters that the history of wind power development in China was reviewed from the initial stage where everyone did not approve, to gain recognition, to high-speed growth, and then to enter the adjustment period and development. The trajectory is "spiral ascent." Therefore, in the long run, the "rational adjustment" of wind power will be conducive to the healthy and sustainable development of the entire industry.

For example, he said, for example, with the successive introduction of a series of related industrial adjustment policies by the state, the access standards for the wind power industry have been continuously improved, which will inevitably lead to the optimization and integration of the industry, and the industrial concentration will be further enhanced. According to incomplete statistics, among the many wind power machine manufacturers in China, the market share of the top three companies has risen to 60%, while the total market share of the top ten companies has reached about 85%.

“It is not difficult to imagine that in the future, a considerable part of wind power manufacturing companies will be forced by the pressure of capital, technology, cost and marketing, and they will not be able to 'close, stop, merge, and transfer', and eventually form a situation where a few large manufacturers unify the market.” In a sense, "in a sense, this will help rational allocation of market resources, curb price declines and quality declines in overall machine products brought about by irrational price wars, and contribute to the sustainable development of the industry."

For another example, in recent years, the rapid development of wind power has been constrained by power grids. This precisely exposes the contradiction of grid construction speed delays, which makes the grid development speed faster than ever before; at the same time, grid companies are safe and reliable. Starting from the introduction of a number of new regulations for wind power, its purpose is precisely to receive large amounts of wind power. It is expected that the proportion of wind power in the power grid will gradually increase in the future.

“In addition, with the adjustment of domestic industrial policies and the intensification of competition in the wind power market, wind power investors and manufacturers in China have accelerated the pace of internationalization,” Wu Gang told reporters. On the one hand, Guodian Longyuan, Three Gorges, China Guangdong Nuclear Power, and Many Chinese wind power development companies, such as Tang Group and Guohua Power, actively “go global” and use wind power equipment made in China to develop wind farms abroad; on the other hand, Chinese wind power equipment manufacturers represented by Goldwind Technology are also fully developing. international market.

The pace of wind power development in China will continue to lead the global market. Wuhan Iron and Steel said that in the past two years, more than 30 vicious accidents have occurred in the wind power industry, which has had a significant impact on the investment income of developers. These accidents “forced” wind power development from the simple pursuit of scale and speed in the past to the transformation of risk control, quality, and investment income in 20 years. For example, some investors in the market no longer use the lowest price as the sole criterion for bidding for equipment. Instead, they focus on product quality and power generation efficiency, and inspect maintenance costs for 20-year life including major repairs, maintenance, and consumables. , Fully consider the investment risk, and strive to reduce the cost of electricity.

"Under the control and guidance of the National Energy Administration, although China's wind power industry is slowing down the pace of development, its speed of development will still lead the global market," Wu Gang told reporters. According to statistics, from 2011 to 2015, the average annual increase in wind power in China will reach 15-20 GW, with an average compound annual growth rate of about 20%. "China's wind power market has great potential and the outlook is still promising," he said.

"Three Breakthroughs" Realizing "Three Major Changes"

Some experts pointed out that during the “Twelfth Five-Year Plan” period, China’s wind power industry is facing three major changes: the transformation from a wind power country to a strong wind power country, a change from manufacturing in China to China, and a change from the domestic market to the international market.

How to accomplish these three major changes? Wuhan Iron and Steel believes that this requires China's wind power industry must achieve breakthroughs in business management, technological innovation and value concepts.

The first is to implement industrial refinement management. WISCO told reporters that the explosive growth in the past few years has sent China's wind power industry to the “world's top” position, but it has far exceeded the world’s advanced level in terms of industrial refinement and maturity. Compared with other European and American peers, China's wind power industry is still in an extensive operating phase. There are a series of problems such as low management level, low labor productivity, unsound standards, and rough process flow and product quality. In the rapid development of the industry, problems will be overshadowed or ignored; now that the industry is slowing down, the problems will be exposed.

“The refinement of industrial operations includes the refinement of products and the refinement of management, especially when the current business is facing operational pressures, the significance of refined management is particularly significant.” Wu Gang said that when the development of the industry slows down, it is China. Wind power industry took off from the impetuous machine. Promoting the refinement of the industry is a transformation that China's wind power industry must undergo, and it is one of the important signs for realizing the transition from a “wind power giant” to a “wind power giant”.

Secondly, innovation and growth “Innovation is one of the core competitiveness of a company. The innovation results with independent intellectual property rights are the key to transforming from manufacturing in China to creating in China.” Wu Gang said that in the development of wind power in China, whoever plays a quality brand, there is the future . A very important supporting force behind quality is the strength of technological innovation. It is the soul and driving force for the development of companies and even the industry.

He said that from the experience and lessons of other domestic industries and enterprises, it can be clearly seen that “Made in China” can no longer rely solely on the introduction of core technologies from abroad, but only low-value-added production and processing. This will only last forever. Fall behind others. In order to complete the transformation from "Made in China" to "Created in China," China's wind power must enter into international markets and must possess its own core technologies to create greater value.

The third is to break away from low-price competition. Wuhan Iron and Steel believes that the decline in product prices is the result of market competition, but there is a margin of safety in the price decline—that is, quality cost. If this is sacrificed, it will have negative and even destructive effects on industrial safety and sustainable development. Taking wind turbines as an example, from 2008 to the present, the cycle for each 500-kilowatt price drop for the whole machine is getting shorter and shorter, which is 10 months, 8 months, 6 months and 4 months respectively. By 2011, the rate of price decline is even more impressive. Associated with the "price war" are increasing product quality problems and even malignant quality accidents.

Wu Gang said that the current Chinese wind power industry is facing a problem of value orientation and orientation. If the power generation enterprise insists on a one-time low-price procurement policy, it will inevitably transfer the cost pressure to the whole machine enterprise, and then pass it down to the parts and components companies, resulting in the entire industry chain will desperately reduce costs, and unable to take into account product performance and Quality will form a vicious circle; conversely, if the power generation enterprises attach importance to the power generation efficiency and efficiency of the generating units and pursue the best total cost of the products throughout the entire life cycle, they will effectively stimulate the enthusiasm of manufacturers in terms of technological innovation and quality improvement and form a benign quality. Cycle, promote the sustainable development of the industry.