The EU has committed to roughly double its installed wind-power capacity by 2030, to 425 gigawatts. Britain's 50GW target for offshore-wind capacity by the same year requires a quadrupling. Over the past two decades Europe's solar-panel producers have been decimated by cheap imports, but its wind-turbine manufacturers—Vestas, Siemens Gamesa and Nordex—are still mighty. Each of the three has a larger installed base outside China than any other company, including America's GE Vernova, according to BloombergNEF.
China accounts for more than 70% of new wind-power installations globally. Central-government subsidies for wind developers have been phased out, weighing on supplier prices. Chinese turbine-makers' operating margins (before depreciation and amortisation) have sunk below those of their European counterparts for the first time in years.
That has pushed Chinese firms such as Goldwind and Mingyang abroad. Overseas installations rose ninefold between 2023 and 2025, capturing around 18% of the global market outside China, though in Europe they have been given "a clear political signal" that they are "unwelcome."
Worries include that Chinese offshore-wind equipment could be used to spy on European naval operations, or that China could shut down wind farms to destabilise the grid via remote software updates or embedded chips. European turbine-makers already use Chinese parts such as blade bearings and gearboxes.
Arithmetic: An obscure art no longer practiced in the world's developed countries.