REpower Systems AG and the Chinese steel- and machinery building company North Heavy Industry Corporation (NHIC), as well as the British wind farm project developer Honiton Energy Ltd, signed a contract for the establishment of the joint venture REpower North (China) Ltd in the city Baotou, which is located in the North of China.
Thereby REpower Systems AG is the first foreign wind energy turbine manufacturer in China that received a controlling interest over a Chinese joint venture which produces wind energy turbines. The registered capital of the joint venture, owned to 50.01 per cent by REpower, is about € 10 million, and the total investment is approximately € 30 million. NHIC owns 33.34 per cent and Honiton 16.65 per cent of the shares. The partner NHIC, a Chinese state-owned enterprise with 20,000 employees, manufactures e.g. construction machines, mining vehicles, and mining equipment and belongs to the NORINCO group. The partner Honiton has a project pipeline with a total output of 1,200MW until 2010. For 2008, REpower North (China) aims to install 100 turbines of the REpower MM70 and MM82 series. These will mainly be manufactured from components produced in China. In the two following years, this capacity is planned to be doubled each year until 2010.