Chinese turbine makers ride price advantages to global expansion: report

Chinese wind turbine manufacturers are leveraging cost advantages to secure a rapidly growing slice of overseas orders, fundamentally reshaping the global onshore wind market, said a recent report by BloombergNEF.

The BNEF analysis said Chinese wind turbines boast a price discount of 10 to 40 percent compared to their foreign counterparts, depending on the region.

The price gap is widest in emerging markets such as Turkiye and Africa, while narrowing in developed markets like Canada, said Oliver Metcalfe, head of wind research at BNEF.

While Chinese wind turbine makers rely mostly on their home market — with domestic installations accounting for 93 percent of all capacity added by these players in 2025 — this marked a notable drop from 99 percent in 2024, indicating the export push is starting to gain traction.

Envision and Goldwind led on non-domestic commissioned capacity, according to BNEF.

Chinese turbine makers took the top six spots in BNEF's global market share ranking for the first time this year, with Goldwind maintaining its position as the world's leading wind turbine supplier, installing 29.3 gigawatts in 2025.

Envision retained second place with 20.9 GW, almost a quarter of which was outside the Chinese mainland, while Mingyang and Windey followed, BNEF said.

This moment marks the emergence of Chinese manufacturers as true global players, as they are leveraging lower-cost production and fast delivery to enter new markets and undercut established rivals across Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, BNEF said.

Propelled by this cost-effectiveness, overseas orders for Chinese turbines have surged. In 2025, key destination markets for Chinese equipment included Saudi Arabia, India, Kazakhstan and Brazil. Domestic industry leaders such as Envision, Goldwind, Mingyang, Sany and Windey are spearheading this global push, Metcalfe said.

However, costs are only part of the equation. When foreign developers select turbine suppliers, price and equipment reliability — or power generation yield — serve as the top two determining criteria.

These are closely followed by localized service capabilities, project bankability, cybersecurity, international certifications, local track records, and ESG (environmental, social and governance) compliance issues.

Looking ahead, while the Chinese mainland will remain the undisputed leader in volume, key overseas growth markets — including Germany, the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Australia, Turkiye, Spain and Brazil — are emerging as core strategic targets for Chinese manufacturers.

Despite the optimistic manufacturing and export outlook, the BNEF report warns that the primary bottleneck for the global wind sector is no longer equipment supply. Instead, challenges have shifted to system-side constraints, specifically grid carrying capacity, project yields and power system flexibility.

Grid connection bottlenecks have become particularly acute, said Metcalfe.

Furthermore, the industry is grappling with a "cannibalization" effect on electricity prices. As wind and solar installations multiply, wholesale power prices are increasingly depressed during peak generation periods, squeezing project yields.

To combat these yield pressures, the logic behind wind-plus-storage projects is actively evolving. Previously driven largely by local policy mandates, pairing wind farms with energy storage is steadily becoming an economically driven choice.

By utilizing battery storage to hedge against revenue losses during low-price periods, developers in markets like Australia, Turkiye and the US are rapidly expanding co-located projects.

For Chinese turbine manufacturers, providing integrated energy storage solutions is becoming essential not just for hardware sales, but for helping developers navigate the complex grid and pricing dynamics of the future global wind market, BNEF said.