Airtricity now ready to collaborate on Chinese project

Ireland's Airtricity, which recently pulled out of the US market (Windpower Monthly, November 2007), is expected to soon announce movement on its first Chinese project, a 50 MW development in Inner Mongolia announced in June 2006. The company looks set to use Chinese wind turbines, which company CEO Eddie O'Connor lauds for their relatively low price (main story). At last month's Wind Power Shanghai conference, Han Junliang, CEO of Sinovel Wind, a rapidly growing domestic manufacturer of wind turbines, said: "We have been talking about collaborations, including with Airtricity." O'Connor confirmed the discussions are taking place. Airtricity entered the Chinese market a year ago and has spent some time lobbying the government to change its competitive bidding structure for wind power contracts and to remove the requirement for 51% domestic ownership of wind power stations before they are eligible for emission reduction credits under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. Airtricity now seems less occupied with changing the Chinese market and more inclined to do business the Chinese way.