Chinese firms top global wind turbine market in 2024

Thanks to the country’s booming local market.

Chinese companies dominated the global wind turbine original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in 2024, according to a new report from Woof Mackenzie.

A first for Chinese firms, Endri Lico, principal analyst at Wood Mackenzie, said this marks “a significant shift in the wind turbine manufacturing landscape.”

“This is driven by China's booming domestic market, which shows no signs of cooling off in the near-term,” the expert added.

Despite record installations and orders, profitability fell due to intense competition and component oversupply. To address this, the companies agreed to maintain healthy competition, resulting in a price rebound in the fourth quarter of 2024.

Meanwhile, Western OEMs faced mounting pressures, with connections outside China dropping below 40 gigawatts, the lowest since the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Western OEMs are adapting to the challenging market conditions by focusing on their core markets, restructuring their manufacturing footprint, increasing outsourcing from the East, divesting non-core activities, simplifying their product portfolios. More than anything, the Western OEMs exercised commercial discipline," Lico said.

Stop-and-go policies and delays resulted to global grid-connected offshore wind capacity declining in 2024 despite an all-time high of being connected outside China.

Wood Mackenzie said Beijing’s increased share of the global market and the transition to next-generation offshore wind turbines increased the spread of turbines deployed, and the weighted average turbine rating across the globe by 18% in 2024 compared with 2023.