Whilst China’s growing economy is widely regarded as being responsible for severe environmental degradation and a high reliance on energy from fossil fuels, China is emerging as a potential leader in new green energy technologies. Outlining the extraordinary growth in China’s wind power capacity since 2005, this book explores the deliberate creation of a whole industry and the strategy of transitioning the power sector to renewable energy by accelerated experimentation and through literally pushing the emerging wind power sector to its limits. Investigating how wind power may not always be considered as sustainable in a wider Chinese developmental context, the book traces the struggle China has had in getting this high technology sector to qualify as truly Chinese scientific development, whilst often being opaquely at the mercy of foreign expertise, technology, and certification. The book furthermore exposes the surprising nuances, dynamics, and potency of unexpected players in Chinese wind power marketisation. Complex interplays are revealed between wind turbine control systems, algorithms in critical software technology, relationships between suppliers, wind farm developers, financiers, the electrical grid itself, the coal lobby, the broader Chinese state, and much more. The book has important implications far beyond wind power and contemporary China studies, highlighting the much wider story of China’s fragmented and experimental style of innovating, upgrading, and greening.
Author(s): Julia Kirch Kirkegaard
Series: Routledge Studies on the Chinese Economy
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 348
City: Abingdon
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of text boxes
Preface
Acknowledgements
List of abbreviations
Part I: Setting the context for the controversy study of Chinese ‘greening’ through accelerated wind power development
Prologue: The algorithmic universe of wind power – mapping controversies over China’s ‘wind power miracle’
1. Upgrading in software algorithms at the core of Chinese wind power development
2. Introducing a unique analytical strategy – the Anthropology of Markets
3. Setting the scene – empirical background to prise open the blackbox of Chinese wind power development
Part II: Controversy study - mapping five sites of controversy over Chinese wind power development
4. Qualification struggle in Chinese wind power – marketisation by advancing towards the brink of collapse?
5. Controversy over access to the grid – making space for wind in the Chinese Kingdom of Coal
6. Controversy over access to money in China’s spider’s web – diving into the ‘system problem’ of Chinese wind power development
7. Controversy over access to intellectual property rights for software algorithms
8. Controversy over access to standards and certificates
Part III: Conclusions and broader perspectives
9. Conclusions and reflections on Chinese marketisation of wind power development
10. Broadening out perspectives and looking ahead
Appendices
Appendix I: Data overview
Appendix II: Data coding
Appendix III: Interview overview
Index
