Qin Haiyan, Secretary-General of the China Wind Energy Association, published two articles in half a month to warn that the price war is dragging the industry to the edge of danger. Can trust be rebuilt?

On June 29th and 30th, 2026, Qin Haiyan, the Secretary-General of the Wind Energy Professional Committee of the Chinese Renewable Energy Society, consecutively published two signed articles, "Wind power should get out of the zero-sum game, and the market needs mutual support" and "Mutual support in the wind power market requires the rebuilding of trust", calling on the wind power industry to get out of the zero-sum game and rebuild trust in the industrial chain.

The intensive statements made by the Secretary-General of an industry association within half a month all point to the same issue - the two-year price war has pushed the wind power industry into severe involution. The profits of wind turbine manufacturers have been squeezed to the limit, product quality problems have broken out intensively, and the trust between the upstream and downstream is collapsing.

The price has dropped below the floor, and wind turbine manufacturers are starting to collectively fail to win bids

As Foresee Energy knows, 2024 was the most brutal year for the wind power price war in China. The winning bid price of onshore wind turbines dropped from over 4,000 yuan per kilowatt at the highest point in mid-2020 to around 1,000 yuan per kilowatt at the lowest point in early 2024. The bid price of some projects even fell below 1,000 yuan per kilowatt.

According to the statistics of the Wind Energy Professional Committee, the monthly weighted average price of onshore wind turbine units in 2024 has fallen below 1,300 yuan per kilowatt, which is lower than the cost line of most enterprises.

Judging from the financial report data, the profits of Chinese wind turbine manufacturers have been completely squeezed.

For example, Goldwind Science & Technology had a gross profit margin of 5.05% for its wind turbines in 2024. Sany Heavy Energy had an operating revenue of 27.38 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 53.89%, but its net profit attributable to the parent company was only 712 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 60.69%. The company explained that the orders won at low prices in 2024 were delivered intensively in 2025, and the gross profit margin was significantly squeezed.

Qin Haiyan said straightforwardly in the article: When the gross profit of a wind turbine manufacturer is squeezed to a few percentage points or even accepts orders at a loss, how can he guarantee the best materials, the strictest processes, and the most thorough tests? This is not a moral issue but an economic law.

Moreover, he also pointed out a phenomenon in the article: The number of wind power projects failing to win bids has significantly increased. A few years ago, wind turbine manufacturers would bid for every project, but now they are starting to actively give up projects with harsh conditions. This is not a regression of the market but a situation where "accepting orders is equal to suicide".

Enterprises have also found the problem of low-price involution and taken measures. In March 2026, Qin Haiyan, together with Wu Gang, the Chairman of Goldwind Science & Technology, and Zhang Chuanwei, the Chairman of Mingyang Group, and three others jointly issued a statement calling for "resolutely resisting low-price vicious competition".

The statement was strongly worded: "Competition below the cost price is essentially 'predatory pricing', which is an unfair competition method generally prohibited by law."

It is rare in the history of the wind power industry for the Secretary-General of the industry association and the top leaders of leading enterprises to speak out at the same time.

The power generation does not match, and the contract cannot be enforced. Trust has rotted from the root

The most hidden cost of the price war is data inflation.

Qin Haiyan mentioned in the article that the gap between the actual power generation after the project is put into operation and the promised amount in the feasibility study stage is getting larger and larger. In some cases, the difference is even more than a hundred equivalent full-load power generation hours; the power curve test results do not match the guaranteed values in the bid.

This has led to developers feeling deceived and wind turbine manufacturers feeling that they cannot do a good job due to the price pressure.

The Guohong Zhirui Wind Farm under China Three Gorges Energy is a typical case. The project was put into operation in 2016. In September 2025, a survey found that all 99 wind turbines and 297 blades in the whole field had defects to varying degrees. As of September 30, 2025, the net assets of United Power were -7.137 billion yuan, and it had basically withdrawn from the domestic wind turbine market. China Three Gorges Energy has initiated legal liability pursuit, but it is still a question mark how much compensation can be enforced even if the lawsuit is won.

Coincidentally, at about the same time, two towers in a wind farm in Tonghe County, Heilongjiang Province fell down within half a month, resulting in a direct economic loss of 8.9739 million yuan. The accident investigation conclusion was that there were original welding defects in the tower cylinder welds. Both of the fallen units were produced by United Power. The investigation also pointed out that the supervision and management were not in place, and "the equipment supply unit was not effectively supervised to conduct ultrasonic re-inspections on the tower cylinder welds as agreed in the contract".

Foresee Energy found that these accidents have a common background, that is, the projects were put into operation around the "rush installation wave". It was normal to rush the construction period and cut costs. The hidden dangers broke out intensively ten years later. But the real problem in the industry is that similar risks are still accumulating.

Facing these problems, developers choose to protect themselves with thicker contracts. There are more and more assessment indicators, and the compensation ratio is getting higher and higher. However, many clauses seem strict but cannot be implemented in practice. The power generation assessment is linked to the fluctuation of wind resources, and the power curve test is affected by on-site conditions. Once there is a dispute, it may take several years to resolve.

Wind turbine manufacturers are also forced into a corner. If they quote a high price, they will be eliminated. If they don't sign the contract, they will have no work. So they bite the bullet and sign contracts that they know are difficult to fully meet the standards, and then are exhausted dealing with assessments, explaining deviations, and handling disputes.

Qin Haiyan calculated an account in the article: The real cost of the lack of trust is not how much more cost is spent to prevent risks, but that the operating logic of the entire industry has been distorted - people no longer think about how to make good products and do good projects, but think about how to gain an advantage in the terms and how to suffer less in the assessment.

The price is recovering, but the trust has not returned

Of course, the industry has not always been so miserable. Since the fourth quarter of 2024, the situation has been changing.

Foresee Energy found that central enterprises such as State Power Investment Corporation and China Resources have revised their bid evaluation rules and no longer only choose the lowest price. The opening bid price of State Power Investment Corporation is about 15% higher than the previous industry average bid price. The average winning bid price of onshore wind turbines has gradually recovered from the low point in September 2024 and remained in the range of 1,600 to 1,700 yuan per kilowatt in 2025, a year-on-year increase of about 10%. Some institutions predict that the gross profit margin of the wind turbine industry in 2026 is expected to increase by 3 to 5 percentage points year-on-year.

The price recovery is a good thing, but it cannot solve the trust problem.

For the 99 wind turbines in the Guohong Zhirui Wind Farm of China Three Gorges, 138 blades need to be sent back to the factory for repair, 102 blades need to be repaired on the tower, 57 blades need to be repaired on the platform ground, and 15 new blades need to be purchased for rolling replacement. With United Power's net assets at -7.1 billion yuan, it is a question mark how much the developer can recover through liability pursuit.

For the two fallen towers in the Tonghe Wind Farm of State Energy, the accident investigation said that the supervision and management were not in place. In other words, the acceptance process was not carefully checked at all.

Qin Haiyan wrote in the article: The market needs mutual support. The Party A and the Party B should treat each other equally and cooperate with dignity. Without trust, mutual support is out of the question. Once trust collapses, it takes much longer to rebuild it than any adjustment in the industry.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Foresee Energy", author: Wang Mengjiao, published by 36Kr with authorization.