Chinese by extolling and Underhyped, Greentech Boom-GigaOm

The biggest opportunity or the biggest threat that American industry green technology ever faced, depending on who you're listening, I recently China. But for entrepreneurs and investors closely involved in China's Green leap forward, the truth is somewhere between these two extremes.

It is a message from the centres of the Cleantech Forum in San Francisco, where several experts greentech China set out their views on the most exaggerated — and small — presentation of China's growing role in the global green technology. Here are a few samples of the two categories:

Three ways China Greentech markets are on:

1). the rise of China in the green technology is a threat to US competitiveness: by Andrew Beebe, commercial Director for China, a giant solar panel Suntech, China and the us are not competitors, as well as two key players in the market, the global green technologies.

"It is not a winner and a loser" in a competition between China and the us are growing their businesses, renewable energy, he said. Certainly, China leads the world in solar panel production, but each one solar production work leads around the three points in the installation and maintenance of these panels in markets like the US, and "jobs never externally", he said.

2). the domestic solar industry in China is catching up to the American market: Beebe said, that's just not happening, and probably will not happen in a few years at least. This is partly because China, while still the second-largest economy in the world, is still developing economy where most people live on wages, which should consider the level of poverty in the US and in Europe.

But he said that the Chinese domestic market for solar energy also is lagging behind, because China's strength in large systems, centralized renewable energy such as wind farms is not accompanied by their sophistication in the interconnection of distributed generation resources like rooftop solar systems. That's one big reason that the Chinese market is still the smallest in terms of Suntech's solar panel sales, he said.

3). China is not a friendly place for the early phase of green tech startups: there is no doubt that China lacks the angel investment and venture capital in the early phase of the communities, which has the UNITED STATES, said Andy Tang, General Manager, ABB Technology Ventures, the venture arm of the Swiss grid, the giant ABB.

But he said that China is for the wealth of Government-supported incubators. "Many local governments have a lot of money, and they want to give to work," he said. "It is quite sound field for the early phase of opportunity," even for the US or European companies with technologies that can help.

Three reasons, which is a small Chinese market:

1). smart grid plans include China's more than a massive new transmission lines and substations: China is planning to direct the lion's share of the smart grid buildout its estimated $ 100 billion over the next five years towards a new massive transmission system to connect solar and wind resources in the West to the center of population on the East. But at the same time, the country is to install millions of smart meters in a time, Tang said, and in China, unlike the US, 1 million meters may be a pilot project.

"In comparison with the US, in terms of the investment firm, that it is an area where it can bring good returns," he said. One of the examples, from his previous work as Tang partner of DFJ DragonFund China, Miartech startup, which developed the technology for Powerline carrier, which is now used as a standard for State grid Corp. of China's plans for the introduction of smart meters to 170 million in the coming years.

2). the Chinese Government opens the door to foreign partnership in the area of green technologies. There is no doubt that the Chinese Government was a key factor for the growth of green technologies – and that the Government links to a large extent dictate the success for China's green tech companies.

But in his last $ 1.5 trillion of the five-year economic plan, the Chinese Government has stated that a large part of the appropriations is intended for key industry is expected to come from the private sector, said Mike DeWoskin, Director of China Research Center insight and Deloitte. This includes the objective of the 5 trillion yuan (761 billion dollars), China set for investment in alternative energy in the next ten years, he said. "We're getting the window has not been opened previously, which is very important for cleantech investors."

3). China offers foreign investors exit strategies: Mohsen Khalil, global head of the business climate for the World Bank, International Finance Corporation, an institution that is carried out on the $ 1 billlion in Chinese clean tech investments – agreed that the exits for equity investors are more difficult to predict in China than in the developed markets of the US IPO.

Yet in the IT sector, where IFC has a greater return on the portfolio venture capital are now outpacing other regions, he said. "At the beginning, we were concerned because ... the outputs are not well defined. It's still evolving, but now we have any, and the yield is 40 percent-plus. "

There's plenty of indication that China may offer the same opportunities, the green investment as well. China led the world in green technology IPOs last year and are forecast that will keep the head in 2011.

Posted in green technologies

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