Wind Energy in Asia – New markets, new possibilities

Cornelia von Zengen/ November 23, 2018/ General

This September, we founded Deutsche WindGuard Beijing and Deutsche WindGuard India, making progress in bringing our business to new international markets. Today, we want you to meet the newest additions to the WindGuard family: Managing Directors Wang Yang and Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel. WindGuard Insight asked them about the market developments in India and China, challenges, their vision for the future and cultural differences. Read what they have to say and get WindGuard Insight into the Indian and Chinese wind energy market.

Wang Yang and Kumaravel Rathinavel at Hamburg Wind Energy 2018

In the last couple of years, the market for wind energy in Asia has continuously grown. Of an impressive installed capacity of 202 GW in 2017 in onshore wind, 194 GW are installed in China and India, making them the two biggest markets in the region. Both India and China also set ambitious future goals. By 2022, India wants to increase its installed capacity from now 33GW to 60GW, thereby almost doubling it.  Beside the ambitious goals for onshore wind, India also wants to push offshore wind development.

China on the other hand has been the unchallenged worldwide leader in terms of new wind installations in the last few years. It aims to reach a total of 210GW installed wind power by 2020. After completing the first projects in China in the early 2000s, Deutsche WindGuard became more and more active on the market since 2015. Opening an office, however, was not easily accomplished.

Meet Wang Yang

Wang Yang at the Deutsche WindGuard Booth at China Wind Power 2017
Name:  Wang Yang
Position: Managing Director at Deutsche WindGuard (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd (Dé Wēng Fèi)
Working in wind since: 2001
Former positions: Technical Director at Suzlon, Technical Director AVIC Heavy Machinery
Favourite food: BBQ and Spicy food.

 

The office in Beijing has been two years in the making, but now internationally experienced Chinese wind energy expert Wang Yang has officially resumed his duties as Managing Director of Deutsche WindGuard (Beijing). Deutsche WindGuard India is managed by Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel, a seasoned engineer in the Indian wind industry.

Meet Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel presenting at a conference
Name: Dr. Rathinavel Kumaravel
Position: Managing Director at Deutsche WindGuard India Private Limited
Working in wind since: 2000
Former positions: Senior Scientist at NIWE, Vice President and Head of Engineering & Development at ReGen Powertech
Favourite food: Non-Vegetarian food. Fish dishes, (mainly the dried fish fry common in India). In Germany: Rump Steak!

 

We let both of them answer the same questions for their respective markets and personal development, which you can find below.

Interview with Wang Yang, Managing Director of Deutsche WindGuard Beijing

WindGuard Insight: Please describe your career path up to here.

Wang Yang: I started my career in wind energy as a project manager at InfraVest GmbH’s Beijing office back in 2001. After 5 years, I joined Garrad Hassan and then changed to Suzlon Beijing branch. I was dealing with all technical topics during project lifetime and came to grow and lead a team to provide relevant technical service. In end of 2010, I worked for AVIC Heavy Machinery still as CTO of renewable business, but after around 1.5 years, I started to do something on my own. Around 2016, I reconnected with WindGuard, who I knew from my first projects, due to market potentials in China, and now we’ve progressed to have a daughter company in Beijing.

WindGuard Insight: Who is your role model in the wind industry or in general?

Wang Yang: I have an idol named LIANG Shuming, a philosopher from China, whose famous saying is “Think independently, and deeds and words are in accord”. Words are simple, but hard to persist…

WindGuard Insight: How was the development in the market and region you are covering for WindGuard in the last three years?

Wang Yang at the Deutsche WindGuard Booth at China Wind Power 2017

Wang Yang at the Deutsche WindGuard Booth at China Wind Power 2017

Wang Yang: Wind installation target in China is huge in number. It is around 175GW in 2018, the target by 2020 is set to be 210GW (with 5GW offshore). In the past several years, project development in central and southern China has been the trend. I think this will continue thanks to the introduction of longer blade length WTG, as well as the offshore projects within 15~20km off in the sea water of the coastal area. Besides large scale wind farm development, it’s also encouraged to develop and invest in small scale and distributed wind projects. This might ease the grid integration efforts as they are close to the load centre. Power curtailment in some areas was a huge concern, but it has been very much improved in the past years. That led to a re-start of large scale wind farm development in northern and western China. However, currently, the whole value chain is facing the pressure of cost reduction due to the requirement of pursuing the ultimate goal of grid parity. And the biggest thing is now, same as in Germany, the auction system which will be introduced in 2019.

WindGuard Insight: What is your favourite thing about Germany?

Wang Yang:  Beer!

WindGuard Insight: What would you say is the main cultural difference from your home country to Germany?

Wang Yang: There are too many differences. The language is a huge difference, of course. The biggest difference after that…. I think, we have a different view on human and nature which leads to different ways of thinking and a different mind-set.

Market developments in China – more growth

WindGuard Insight: Which market developments do you expect for the future in your region?

Wang Yang: According to the 13th Five-Year plan (2016~2020), there will be 210GW wind installation with 6% contribution to the overall electricity consumption, with local manufacturing capability established from component manufacturing to WTG assembly. Given the current market status, I expect that the wind power sector will keep growing but with more rationality. For manufacturers, the strong ones will get stronger with more backlogs while the weak will fade out from the market. For the sake of offering competitive prices in the new auction system, WTG manufacturers are the main drivers of cost reduction by means of cost saving or technology innovation. In general, I hope to position WindGuard China as a hub in China for the broad range of services offered by WindGuard, and improve the recognition in the Chinese wind energy sector even further. And the ultimate goal is to establish a full-fledged team providing high-quality but timely services to our clients here.

Interview with Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel, Managing Director of Deutsche WindGuard India

WindGuard Insight: Please describe your career path up to here.

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel at the office of Deutsche WindGuard India

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel at the office of Deutsche WindGuard India

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: After my engineering graduation in the year 1999, I shortly worked in a steel plant for a year and then moved on to wind energy. I am fortunate to be the first engineer of National Institute of Wind Energy, India (Govt. Of India) who had the opportunity to work with Risoe National Laboratory (Now DTU Wind, Denmark) to bring the technology of wind turbine design, testing and certification to the country. I carried out many prototype testing campaigns for various new wind turbines models in the country, ranging from 225kW to 2000kW. I worked at NIWE until the year 2010 and moved on to ReGen Powertech India, which is one of the largest wind turbine manufacturing companies. At ReGen, I headed the engineering & development department, which is responsible for the development of new wind turbine designs, proto type testing and certification, new blade and tower technologies and power curve measurement campaigns for customer wind farms. I am really blessed to be part of the first generation of the Indian wind energy industry and to have joined the crew from 2000 onwards, when the real scientific developments started in the country.

WindGuard Insight: Who is your role model in the wind industry or in general?

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: In general life, it is my father, from whom I picked up hardworking, discipline, obedience, house-keeping, project management and a few other qualities. These soft skills helped me a lot in my career and family life, to lead both successfully. In wind industry, I have really picked up lot of good features from many gentlemen. To mention a few, I would definitely say Mr. Madhusudan Khemka (MD – ReGen Powertech) & Mr. Tulsi Tanti (Chairman – Suzlon) for their entrepreneurship, hard work, perseverance and dedication to achieve their goals and bring up their companies.

Future Trends in Indian Wind Industry in the last years

WindGuard Insight: How was the development in the market and region you are covering for WindGuard in the last three years?

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: In India, the wind business always had many fluctuations like the pattern of Mother Nature’s wind. This happens due to many reasons viz. tariffs, policies, evacuation aspects and global economics. In this cycle, it we had very good growth in the year FY16-17, where about 5.5GW of wind turbines were added to the grid. This was one of the highest numbers of installations in the history of Indian wind industry. In the beginning of 2017, the Bid in Tariff system was introduced, for wind power purchase by the Government of India. Before this, it was the Feed in Tariff that was in practice and each provincial Government had their own tariff based on the wind potential available in the state. The introduction of the bidding system brought down the price for wind power to approximately INR2.5 (2.9 Euro cents) per kWH, which was earlier ranging from INR3.5 to 5.5 per kWH. This has drastically brought down the wind power installation in the country. Therefore the wind power added to the grid in the year FY17-18 is 1.7GW. Nearly after one and half year from the launch of Bid in Tariff system, the industry got tuned and adjusted itself to the current wind energy economics. Still, a few stakeholders are in the process of adjusting, but that will also happen soon, according to my view. In the coming years, I strongly feel there will be a consistent and progressive growth of wind power in India, with the ambitious target of achieving 60GW by 2022, set by the Government of India from the current figure of 33GW. That is nearly 6.5GW every year to be added to the grid. With this figures, India is 4th largest wind power nation in the world.

WindGuard Insight: What is your favourite thing about Germany?

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: Favourite things about Germany are too many to name. A few would be:

  1. The wind farms and German cattle grazing in the midst of green landscape & agricultural farm lands
  2. German engineering & technology
  3. Long distance travel in DB-ICE trains
  4. Riding bicycle in the village/forest paths

WindGuard Insight: What would you say is the main cultural difference from your home country to Germany?

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: The work-life-balance is taken care of in the German working style, not unlike in my home country. I really admire the culture of German people to strictly follow punctuality, planning, focus and use the right tools in executing a job. Largely, I see lot of similarities in Indian and German culture. Especially in people’s thinking, behavioural aspects, working style, agricultural and cattle rearing aspects. The main differences are, of course, climate, food and language.

WindGuard Insight: Which market developments do you expect for the future in your region?

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel: I expect lot of site assessments, wind resource assessments, power curve measurements and grid related measurements for onshore wind energy. Technical services related to offshore wind farming would also crop up steeply in the next couple of years. I am looking forward eagerly to put WindGuard on a firm footing in the Indian wind industry.

Want to know more about wind energy in China and India? Get in touch with Wang Yang and Kumar in our Asian offices.

Office building of Deutsche WindGuard (Beijing)

Deutsche WindGuard (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd Dé Wēng Fèi

5F, naked Hub
Bldg. C , Pacific Century Place
2A Worker Stadium North Road
Chaoyang District, Beijing, P.R.C.
Postcode:100027

Phone: +86 (0) 1380 – 124 – 0835

 

 

Deutsche-WindGuard-India-Office-OutsideDeutsche WindGuard India Private Limited

51, Rajiv Gandhi Salai
1st Floor, Tower B, Rattha Tek Medows
Sholinganallur, Chennai 600119, India

Phone: +91 (44) 66255680

 

 

Co Authors :

Kumaravel Rathinavel

Dr. Kumaravel Rathinavel is Managing Director and senior consultant at Deutsche WindGuard India Private Limited in Chennai. A wind energy veteran since the year 2000, he is now excited to promote German wind engineering in India through WindGuard services.

Get in touch with Kumar

Wang Yang

Wang Yang is Managing Director and senior consultant at Deutsche WindGuard (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd Dé Wēng Fèi. He has more than 18 years of experience in the Chinese wind market and now looks forward to expand the WindGuard Universe in to China.

Get in touch with Wang Yang

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