Overview of the development of the Chinese Jiangsu coastal wind-power industry cluster

The Jiangsu coastal area in China has rich wind resources, but is relatively backward in economic development and faces the dual constraints of conventional energy and environment. Therefore, seizing the opportunity provided by the National Strategy and promoting the development of a wind-industry cluster are of great importance to this area. First, this research has demonstrated that the Jiangsu coastal wind-power cluster is characterized by local government leadership through a depiction of its current status. Secondly, this research has analyzed the competitive advantage of the Jiangsu coastal wind-power cluster. It has pointed out that excessive intervention by the local government, development issues with wind-power component enterprises, insufficient independent technology innovation, and an imperfect cluster development environment have hindered healthy cluster development. A series of appropriate strategies are then proposed. This paper could not only help policy-makers and the industry understand how to achieve sound development of the Jiangsu coastal wind-power cluster, but also could provide a useful reference for researchers intending to explore wind-power cluster development in the rest of the world. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.