At a recent trade fair in Shanghai, German wind energy companies presented their latest products. China seems the place to be these days.

Thomas Richterich of the Rostock-based company Nordex explained: "The Chinese market has developed so much over the past three years. Last year it entered the top five. Wind energy companies know they can't afford to lose out on this market."

His colleague Peter Mauser thought China would end up meeting its goal to lead the world in wind energy: "If I've understood the Chinese, they will do what they've set their minds on -- it will become reality. So obviously we want to be part of the deal."

Shanghai as model for the future

Potential clients for the German companies are mainly public enterprises such as Shanghai Electric, where Liu Qi is the head engineer. He's the man behind the boomtown's first three wind-powered plants. The first three of an ambitious plan.

"Shanghai has a relatively small surface -- the wind is much better on the coast than inland. In the future, we'll probably build most of our wind farms at sea," he predicted.

"But that's just a plan still. It's already clear that the possibilities offered by wind farms at sea are incomparably bigger. But there will also be major difficulties. Typhoons are a big problem on the Chinese coast."

Foreign know-how

China is still very dependent on foreign know-how for implementing its wind power plans, even though much of the necessary components are already manufactured in China.

Liu Qi explained how this was going to change: "We're planning our own research and development centre. Our engineers won't only improve production but also quality control. New elites are being shaped. We've sent people to be trained in Germany. We'll then bring the technology and know-how back to China and train people here. That's how a team is built up. At the moment, we have 60, 70 engineers and that's not enough in our opinion."

As Shanghai Electric sets out to expand, Liu Qi is already proud that the company is already listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges. Profits are growing for Chinese environmental firms but wind energy is still a small niche market. The state has already introduced tax-breaks to change this.