Chinese wind

Written by Marks@Tiburon
Friday, 07 August 2009 00:00

The speed at which China is addressing its voracious appetite for energy and dire environmental issues is not being given enough attention.

While the country has suffered a slow down in economic growth due to the global credit crisis the government has prioritised the development of wind energy as an area for major investment. At the end of 2008 China’s installed wind capacity was 12,200MW. Already, during the first half of 2009, China’s capacity is reported to have increased by over 10,000MW and by the end of 2009 will account for around one third of the world’s installed wind generating capacity and rank second behind the United States, surpassing Germany and Spain. We believe that this could increase by 400% to over 117,000MW by 2013. With China accounting for 33% of global coal consumption and over 70% of electricity generated coming from coal fired generators, there is every incentive to achieve this fourfold increase over the next two years. Some might say it is a necessity.

Every man and his dog buys into the renewable theme. However with targets set for distant dates like 2020 it is often put on the back burner by investors. We believe that the process is accelerating so that the renewable proposition is not just investible, it is timely. It is for this reason that we are launching a new fund, Tiburon Green in Q3.