ADB funds first $ 73-million Japan-China wind project

The wind farm will be built in a 12-square kilometer site in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, which is considered a prime location for large-scale commercial wind power. Above is an ADB wind farm in India. Photo Courtesy of ADB

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) today said it will partly finance a $73-million wind farm to be built in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region by a Chinese and Japanese joint venture.

ADB said it will provide a long-term loan of up to CNY164 million ($24 million) to Datang Sino-Japan (Chifeng) Renewable Power Corporation, a joint venture between state-owned China Datang Corporation and Japan’s Kyushu Electric Power Company, Sumitomo Corporation, and Sumitomo Corporation (CHINA) Holdings.

It will be the first private-sector wind farm to be financed by the ADB in China, and is also the first wind farm project by a Japan-China joint venture in the country.

The wind farm will be built in a 12-square kilometer site in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia, which is considered a prime location for large-scale commercial wind power.

"The lack of finance on reasonable terms has held back the development of clean energy projects in the PRC,” Hisaka Kimura, an investment specialist at ADB, said.

“This project could become a model for future collaborations between state-owned enterprises and foreign investors in renewable energy projects, and may encourage the PRC's private sector to invest in wind power projects," Kimura added.

China has become the second-largest power consumer in the world, next only to the US. However, if fully developed, its wind energy can reportedly produce up to 1,000 gigawatts of power, more than its current generation.

The Chinese government aims for 100 GW of electricity to be sourced from win by 2020, from the current around 12 GW.


- Eric Dorente

Source:

¹ http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2009/12929-asian-renewable-energies/joint-NR.pdf