Why Vestas Wants Chinese Wind Turbines Off Europe’s Grid

Happy Monday everyone.

Denmark taught the world how to build wind turbines. This week … three Danish stories asked the same question. What happens to the country that started it all … now that China builds most of the world’s turbines?

The answer begins with a man who has been doing this for thirty years. In nineteen ninety-six … a Danish developer put up his first wind turbine. Back then, turbines were going up all over the countryside. If the numbers worked … you built it.

Today he runs Lisby Windpower. And he says developers like him are a dying breed. They are small and local … and they build with their own money. If a project goes wrong, he takes the hit. So he has always treated his neighbors right. He remembers when those neighbors came to the turbine parties and ate red sausages on bread.

Now the big multinationals have moved in. He says they can promise a local family a lot … and be gone tomorrow. Meanwhile, onshore building in Denmark has nearly stopped. But he is not bitter. His latest project is Denmark’s first commercial wind turbine battery. He says the industry is better at everything today … even if the work is harder.

While the old guard fades … Denmark’s biggest wind company is fighting a very different battle. It is run by a man who grew up in Jutland. As a boy, he would stare out his window at the turbines turning in the distance. He wanted to know how they worked. As a young man, he bought shares in the company that built them. He admits it was not much of a success in those early years. He was a banker, not an engineer. But in twenty thirteen, that same company put him on its board. Its losses were nearing one billion euros. Six years later … he was running it.

That boy at the window is Henrik Andersen. And the company he watched … is Vestas.

Today Vestas is making money again. Operating profit last quarter was four hundred forty-six million euros … up from fifty-seven million a year earlier. But Andersen is worried about China. Last year, for the first time, the five biggest turbine suppliers in the world were all Chinese. Goldwind alone installed nearly thirty gigawatts … twice as much as Vestas.

An economist at ING says Chinese makers can undercut European prices by as much as half. He says state support is the main reason. Even so, Chinese companies supplied less than three percent of Europe’s new turbines last year.

Andersen wants to keep it that way. He says China once barred Vestas from running its own software on its turbines there. So he asks a simple question. Why should Chinese turbines and software be welcome on Europe’s grid? He says Europe should guard its energy the same way it guards its borders. The European Commission seems to be listening. In February, it opened an investigation into Goldwind’s subsidies.

And then there is Ørsted. Denmark’s other wind giant has warned loudly about cheap, state-backed Chinese competition. But the Danish newspaper Berlingske reports that Ørsted buys some monopiles and cables … from China. Ørsted’s chief executive says that happens only in isolated cases. He says the turbines still come from Europe.

The Danish trade group Tekniq is not satisfied. The Danish government owns most of Ørsted. Tekniq says that should mean European jobs come first. A Danish China expert sees the bind. Ørsted has to compete on price today … while it asks the European Union to fix the price gap tomorrow.

So what should wind professionals take from all this?

First … China’s price edge is real. And even Denmark’s champions feel it. When a state-owned developer that warns about Chinese subsidies still buys Chinese monopiles … the gap is not small. European suppliers will not win that fight on price alone.

Second … security is becoming a selling point. Andersen is not really arguing about cost. He is arguing about who controls the software inside the turbine. If you build controls, sensors or monitoring systems for wind … where your code comes from is about to matter a lot more.

Third … proven beats bigger. Vestas stopped chasing size and started chasing repeatability. Fewer redesigns mean fewer defects. And lenders trust a track record. Time in the field is the one advantage China cannot buy with subsidies.

Danish developers may be part of a dying breed. But what that generation built … thirty years of turbines that kept on turning … is still Denmark’s best argument.

And that is the state of the wind industry for the 5th of October 2026. Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy podcast tomorrow.