Chinese wind turbine giant enters Australian market, with promise of price cuts and huge pipeline
Photo: Envision
Rachel Williamson
Jul 22, 2025
Battery, Hydrogen, Renewables, Wind
One of the biggest suppliers of wind turbines in the world is entering the Australian market for the first time, and promising to deliver significant cost cuts for developers, and a huge pipeline of projects.
Chinese-owned Envision Energy announced its first wind and battery deal in Australia last week, and is aiming to direct a portion of the 30 gigawatts (GW) of turbine orders it secured last year into the Australian market.
It promises to deliver new competition in the market, largely dominated by a handful of global suppliers such as Vestas, Goldwind and GE, but it’s not the only focus of the company.
Peter Cowling, a former head of the Clean Energy Council and Vestas Australia, and now head of wind for Envision in Australia, says the company is also targeting standalone batteries, standalone wind projects, and hybrids that are connected behind the meter, with all the components made and supplied by the company.
“Our BESS [battery energy storage system] has a really good grid forming function, and we’d expect to incorporate a grid forming BESS with most wind farms going forward,” Cowling told Renew Economy.
Envision is looking to muscle in on utility-scale on- and off-grid projects, the latter with a view to the Pilbara where mining companies are still trying to figure out how to work together to decarbonise their iron ore mining projects, and move ahead with big green hydrogen installations.
Yet despite the splashy entrance at the Australian Wind Conference 2025 in Melbourne last week, Envision has in fact had a presence in Australia for about six years.
“At that time, we were not truly ready yet in terms of products, in terms of the local capability, especially on the talent side,” Envision senior vice president Kane Xu told Renew Economy.
“The Australian market is famous for being quite strict in many different ways. You need to have a very good understanding about the local grid, local permissions, certification processes, EPC logistics, you name it.”
Realising just how complicated getting a toe-hold in Australia would be, the company put its plans on the back burner but set about figuring out the landscape here. The first hires were grid experts, followed by engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) and then finally sales and project development.
Xu says they’re locked in for the long term, but even after six years of watching and learning and bringing in local brains, such as former GE, Vestas and Suzlon exec Cowling, Australia is still a tough market.
“There’s a few challenges, the way we see it,” Xu says. “Number one is the [project] uncertainty itself from the developers. They spend the time but… projects get cancelled, [encounter] some difficulties and challenges.
“We also see the entire supply chain challenge, for example, the infrastructure at the port, the infrastructure for local transportation, [things we as a turbine supplier] have to handle. We see it as a challenge. And then the availability for the local EPC. All of these add more complexity into the picture.”
How much cheaper?
Xu would not be drawn on how much cheaper Envision’s products would be.
But Engie’s head of development Scott de Keizer says that based on tenders his company is doing, Goldwind, the first Chinese turbine supplier to break into the Australian market, is around 15 per cent cheaper on a levellised cost of energy basis than its western counterparts.
He points out, however, that the situation is very site specific within Australia, and not all sites will see the same discount.
“Obviously being incumbents, they take a greater margin,” de Keizer told Renew Economy.
“But you know, if [all turbine suppliers] are manufacturing in China you would expect there would be a like-for-like for other Chinese turbines. But I guess expectations around margin and profits can be different for every organization.”
Renew Economy reported late last year that Goldwind’s domestic turbine prices were could be more than 20 per cent cheaper than Vestas turbines. Neoen CEO Xavier Barbaro also flagged they may choose a Chinese turbine supplier for future Australian projects after having problems with the price, service and quality of the western manufacturers.
Goldwind arrived in 2009 and started with the modest 19.5 megawatt (MW) Mortons Lane wind farm in Victoria.
Envision is also starting small, with a “pilot” 35 MW Wombelano project in western Victoria, but one that will be the country’s first hybrid wind and battery project, sharing the same connection point and using grid-forming inverters.
“This is going to be a hybrid wind and BESS co-development using 100 per cent Envision technology products. So we are going to have the full stack of our converter embedded into our turbine and full … GPS model with our BESS system at the same time,” Xu says.
Shifting the incumbents
The reason why Australia is dominated by incumbent turbine manufacturers is because wind projects, unlike solar or batteries, require a big team to handle grid connections, transport, and all other aspects of getting a giant turbine out of an overseas factory and upright in rural Australia, de Keizer says.
“The Europeans have come in and invested in a workforce, invested in engineering capacity, invested in grid connection support people. So there’s an ecosystem around those particular businesses to deliver on what they say they can deliver on,” he says.
“Now we know that their turbines might be now constructed in China, but ultimately, it’s a European system that’s going to deliver it.”
The dominant Australia turbine supplier, Vestas, remains confident of its position and says the addition of a major Chinese brand simply shows Australia is a healthy, maturing market.
“Vestas powers more wind than any other OEM in Australia and has been committed to this market for over 25-years,” a company spokesperson said in a statement to Renew Economy.
“Through this long-standing track record, we understand the critical responsibilities OEMs hold — to lead on safety, deliver state-of-the-art technology, maintain reliable long-term service partnerships, and build trust with local communities.
“As Australian wind projects grow in scale and complexity, OEMs must demonstrate proven capability to execute large scale energy projects while ensuring system security — safely and reliably.”
And that kind of track record is important to developers pulling together a billion dollars in debt and equity to pay for a project, Engie’s de Kiezer says.
“Goldwind have been in the market and they’ve got a track record. So you would find there’s going to be less anxiety around that particular manufacturer,” he says.
“Now, as it relates to new entrants like Envision who are now coming back into the system, that’s going to be anxiety inducing for some developers because there’s not a track record [even though] there’s maybe a confidence in the technology. But delivery and technology are two very separate things.”
reneweconomy.com.au |
