Sumito and Datang team up for Chinese wind energy push

Japanese trading house Sumitomo Corporation announced today that it has agreed to ally with China Datang, China's second-largest energy firm, to build wind farms and other renewable-energy facilities in China and further afield.

The two companies will commence their collaboration by building between two and five wind farms in China over the next few years, for a total cost of around 60bn yuan ($8.9bn).

The firms said that they will also work together to develop co-operative projects in wind, solar and biomass in China and other countries.

"Sumitomo Corporation Group intends to devote even greater efforts into expanding our business of renewable energy in China, where [sic] became the largest market in the world last year in terms of newly installed capacity of wind turbine and also plan to invest about 5 trillion RMB [$738bn] from 2011 to 2020 in the area of renewable energy," the company said in a statement.

The company added that it is aiming to boost its cumulative renewable energy capacity in China to 300MW over the next two to three years with a primary focus on new wind farm developments.

Sumitomo's only current Chinese wind farm is a 50MW joint venture with China Datang Corp and Japan's Kyushu Electric Power in Mongolia, but the company is fast emerging as a major player in the global renewable energy sector.

It also owns and operates a solar power plant in the Canary Islands, and has plans to expand its solar business into Italy, Greece and Spain to take advantage of government subsidies.

In addition to biomass and wind projects in Japan, Sumitomo recently secured a $156.7m deal to build 110 MW geothermal plant in Sumatra, Indonesia.

According to reports, China Datang is poised to pull off an IPO for its renewables division, China Datang Renewable Power, which is expected to raise at least $1bn of new capital.

China Datang Renewable Power was established in March 2009 with 170m yuan ($30m) in capital to operate wind, solar and other renewable power facilities.
It ranks as China's second-largest wind power producer with 1.5 GW of
wind assets at the end of 2008, according to the Chinese Wind Energy
Association.