ABSTRACT

This chapter provides an overview of the formal policies which have promoted China’s wind and solar development, divided into two main areas: those which promote manufacturing and industry development, and those which promote a domestic market through electricity generation. The modern wind turbine history of China can be divided into two phases: one which lasted until the mid-1990s, where the focus was largely on expanding the smaller, decentralised, off-grid wind turbines; and a second which focused on manufacturing and implementing large-scale, grid-connected wind turbines. Development of China’s solar industry has a quite different story than the wind industry, because the solar photovoltaic industry received practically no support from the central government in the early 2000s. This marks an important and interesting difference to the way in which the wind industry emerged. In the Chinese wind turbine industry, the role which the media could play was particularly observed during the 2011 downturn.