China will buy 1,000 wind turbines from South Korea's only wind turbine maker, Unison, over the next five years, in a clear indication of the mainland's major push to enhance the use of renewable energy.

Liaoning province's Fuxin city administration will sign a preliminary agreement with Unison in Seoul today, the South Korean company spokesman Kim Jong Min said in Seoul, Bloomberg reported.

Unison may start supplying the 2-mW turbines next year and may build a 20-billion-won plant in China to produce them locally, Kim said.

The deal to supply 2,000 mW of wind-turbine capacity may be worth as much as 4 trillion won ($3.2 billion), Wang Jingjing, an official at the Fuxin city development and reform commission's wind power department told Bloomberg.

Fuxin's wind industry development plan targets to achieve a capacity of 4 gW by 2020. The city expects to develop a wind industry cluster by attracting power plants and large wind turbine markers such as Goldwind. It also expects the wind industry production output to be worth 20 billion yuan in value terms over the next five years, according to Liaoning Daily.

Liaoning province had an installed wind capacity of 1.2 gW by 2008, and was ranked the second in China.

"China is one of the fastest growing markets in terms of installed wind capacity," said Shi Jingli, an official from the National Development and Reform Commission. "Unison is attracted by China's promising market, and its close geographical proximity to Liaoning is another factor in the investment plan for the plant in Fuxin."

"The Chinese government is encouraging foreign wind turbine producers to make products locally, so foreign producers always build plants for assembly, and usually import key components from their own countries. The short distance could reduce transportation cost," she said.

China plans to invest at least 100 billion yuan to more than double its wind-power capacity by 2010 from last year's.

(China Daily August 14, 2009)