World's elite electric equipment supplier to enhance presence on China's wind power market

SHANGHAI, CHINA - U.S.-based GE Energy won the project of providing wind-power generating units for a wind power program in Nantong City, east China's Jiangsu Province.

Executives with the world's leading electric equipment supplier said that the company is focusing its development strategy on China's huge market for clean energy.

Under the agreement between GE Energy and the Longyuan Wind Power Generating Co. based in Nantong, which is undertaking the second phase of the Rudong wind power program, the American company will provide 100 wind-power generating units each with a capacity of 1,500 kw for the program. Of the total, 67 units will be delivered in 2006 and the remaining 33 the next year.

"The Chinese Government is encouraging development of renewable energy, which will bring clean, replaceable energy for the Chinese people and become a new economic engine," said Robert Gleitz, who is in charge of wind power business of the GE Energy.

Upon completion in 2007, the second phase of Rudong will become a world-class wind power project, Rober Gleitz added.

Praised as a landmark in China's wind power industry, the Rudong program is located near Nantong in northern part of Jiangsu, 50 kilometers away from the East China Sea. It is expected to add 150,000 kw to China's total wind power generating capacity and simultaneously reduce emission of 6,000 tons of carbon dioxide and 895 tons of sulfur dioxide annually, according to officials with Nantong Longyuan company.

Besides wind power generating units, the GE Energy will provide technical guidance in unit installation and trial operation and related personnel training.

The US company has also participated in another five wind power projects in China. Of them, two are located in northern Hebei Province, and the other three in Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shanghai and Xinjiang, respectively.

To shore up its fast-growing and energy-gobbling economy, China is exploring new types of energy. In February this year, the nation passed a law on renewable energy development and utilization, in which wind power was an important element. By 2010, the country plans to install wind power generating units with a combined capacity of six million kw.

The figure is targeted at 30 million kw for 2020.

China has built 40-odd wind power stations with a combined generating capacity of 764,000 kw, less than one percent of the nation's total.