Castings are the foundation of manufacturing. Castings are mainly used as blanks for machine parts, and some precision castings can also be directly used as machine parts. Wind power castings are special castings dedicated to wind turbines and are an important part of wind power equipment, accounting for about 10% of the total cost of wind power. It mainly includes box, torsion arm, hub, shell, base, planet carrier, main frame, fixed shaft, main shaft sleeve, etc.

Wind power casting industry chain

As far as the wind power casting industry chain is concerned, as an important part of the wind turbine, the overall industry chain is relatively simple. The upstream is mainly composed of coke, pig iron, scrap steel, resin and other raw materials and production equipment. Due to the relatively complex finishing of castings and the different processing methods of castings, there are many types of production equipment. At present, the cost of raw materials for wind power castings in my country is about 60-70% of the total production cost. The midstream is mainly wind power casting manufacturing enterprises. The downstream is the wind power industry. Although offshore wind power is still small in scale due to the relatively complex marine environment, it is expected to become a major trend in the future.

As far as the overall status of the upstream end of castings is concerned, the overall output of coke and pig iron in my country has basically maintained a steady growth trend, reaching 464 million tons and 869 million tons respectively in 2021. Although there is a slight decline compared with 2020, the overall supply is stable. It has little impact on the wind power casting industry. As far as scrap steel is concerned, with the continuous development of my country's machinery industry, the consumption of scrap steel has shown a rapid upward trend. As one of the key needs for scrap steel, the overall demand for castings has grown steadily.

Wind power installed capacity

According to the data, in terms of wind power installed capacity, as of 2021, my country's wind power installed capacity will be 328.48 million kilowatts, an increase of 16.68% year-on-year in 2020, and a compound growth rate of 17.2% from 2016 to 2021. It is expected that as the terminal power demand continues to grow, energy demand will still be the key to the future, which will drive the overall demand for the wind power casting industry to continue to rise.

Since wind power castings generally need to meet the high reliability requirements of not being replaced for 20 years, their market demand mainly depends on the newly installed capacity of wind turbines. In some castings such as connecting seat, flange connecting cover, reducer housing, slewing housing, yaw gear box, base and other fields, domestic enterprises already have the ability to participate in international market competition. For example, Huxiwang Group has become Vestas, Important supplier to Comer Industries, Bonfiglioli.

Status Quo of Global Wind Power Casting Industry

In terms of the global wind power casting market size, with the continuous development of the global wind power market, the demand for castings has grown steadily. According to data, the global wind power casting market size in 2020 is about 30.7 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 54.3% over 2019, mainly due to the rapid development of China's wind power industry, coupled with the continued tight global energy structure, the overall supply continues to be tight, and the level of public consumption increase, the demand for electricity continues to grow.

Analysis of the current situation of China's wind power casting market

As far as the scale of my country's wind power casting market is concerned, with the large-scale installation of my country's wind power industry in 2020, and the price of raw materials such as coke in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic, the price of castings will rise, which will drive the price of castings to rise. While wind power belongs to the country, the market shows a hard demand situation. The price has little impact on its demand, and the overall performance of the industry is that the volume and price are rising, resulting in a substantial increase in the overall market size of wind power castings, reaching 23.7 billion yuan.

Development Trend of Wind Power Castings

1. Offshore wind power has become the main development trend

According to statistics, in 2021, my country's new offshore wind power grid-connected installed capacity will reach 16.9 million kilowatts, and in 2021, the offshore wind power installed capacity will reach 26.39 million kilowatts. my country has a coastline of 18,000 kilometers and has a potential of more than 200GW of offshore wind power installed capacity. In 2019, my country's offshore wind power installed capacity has replaced the United Kingdom as the world's largest. Benefiting from the maturity of offshore wind turbine technology and the increasingly perfect supply chain, the development of offshore wind power has become the main development trend of wind power in the future. The future development space of the wind power industry is huge, driving wind power castings The industry develops steadily.

2. The market continues to concentrate

The primary difficulty in casting production is to shorten the cooling time in the hot joint area, prevent the occurrence of defects such as fragmented graphite, and avoid the deterioration of casting performance; secondly, it is necessary to consider the low temperature and multi-load environment during transportation to ensure the uniformity and density of the casting; third Third, casting casting needs to complete the production organization of molten iron in a very short period of time. At present, there are only a few production enterprises with a full set of workshops, equipment and production capacity in the world. With the thickening of technical barriers in the casting industry (especially for finishing), the market concentration will continue to increase.

Source: Huajing Intelligence Network

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