The role of local private participation in China’s transition to domestically developed renewable energy technologies

Abstract

China’s hunger for energy has over the last two decades afforded opportunities to investors from Hong Kong and foreign countries to provide both the energy technologies China needs, as well as project management capabilities to deliver energy projects. Recently, however, China has shown itself to be less reliant on non-local expertise, with an emerging capacity to go it alone in developing sources of energy. Data from the World Bank Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) database was used to analyse this trend, and to identify strategic directions that may be evident in China’s emerging energy self-reliance. A total of 555 cases were extracted for analysis using standard statistical tests across the range of available energy technologies. While it was found that the involvement of Hong Kong and foreign companies remains significant overall, there is a clear trend in Chinese mainland firms targeting and overtaking non-local counterparts in the development of renewable energy technologies and projects. Strong associations were identified between the rise in renewable projects and the growth in the participation of local companies in the energy sector. This is a significant finding and it provides strong implications that Chinese firms have emerged as an important competitor in renewable energy provision.