With license to build: Chinese offshore wind firms rejecting European certificates

Abstract

This paper examines the role of six European certification firms attempt to position themselves in China’s offshore wind industry. We find that European certification firms lack attention to local needs and struggle with differences in risk perceptions. Chinese companies, on their part, stress the importance of first-hand experience rather than foreign involvement in project development, making the efforts of European certification companies redundant. We conclude that the Chinese development strategy is in opposition to established European certification practices: from a Chinese perspective, the European approach looks like over-engineered project development, whilst in China, taking risks and gaining access to necessary experienced and ‘independent’ knowledge is seen as a precondition for developing the offshore wind industry.