Top Wind Firm Profits Tumble 98% in New Blow to Clean Energy - Yahoo Finance
Top Wind Firm Profits Tumble 98% in New Blow to Clean Energy
(Bloomberg) -- Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co., the largest wind-turbine maker, said third-quarter profit tumbled in another blow to a renewables sector reeling from the impact of lower prices even as demand jumps.
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The producer’s net income fell 98% to 9.4 million yuan ($1.29 million) in the three months ended Sept. 30 from a year earlier, the company said Thursday in a statement. Sales volumes in the first nine months were 8.9 gigawatts, up more than a quarter on the same period in 2022. Goldwind’s shares fell as much as 5% intraday in Shenzhen on Friday.
Asia’s largest economy is accelerating deployment of renewable energy as it works to curb emissions and meet rising electricity demand. Though installations are rising, competition is intensifying among China’s wind turbine producers and pushing prices lower.
The sharp quarterly profit drop is due to higher selling expenses and research-and-development costs, Citigroup analyst Pierre Lau wrote in a note. Wind developers are facing higher project costs since all national subsidies expired in 2021 and regional governments require more local-economy contributions, Bloomberg NEF analyst Xiangyu Chen wrote last month.
Clean energy technology manufacturers globally are struggling with rising costs and delays to some projects. Siemens Energy AG plunged more than a third Thursday after confirming it is in talks with the German government about state guarantees as it grapples with weakness in its wind-turbine unit.
Vattenfall AB and Iberdrola SA have already scrapped some developments this year, and the bleak outlook threatens to hamper efforts by Goldwind and other Chinese turbine producers to expand outside their home market.
China’s wind industry is also a potential new target for scrutiny from overseas trade officials. The European Union warned this month that the sector could merit investigation if producers are regarded as having received too much state aid.
Manufacturers in China are selling turbines about 20% cheaper than western peers, according to BloombergNEF.
(Adds stock move and analyst comments in 2nd and 5th paragraphs.)
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Related Knowledge Center: ENERGY BASICS: renewables
Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.