223innovations from false innovations was insufficiently executed (Lam et al., 2017).
Chinese inventors received numerous domestic wind power patents, but few international patents. As seen in Fig. 3, when considering only one patent office— in many cases the inventor’s home office—China has a high share of global patents.
China’s relative share of top countries’ patent activity was highest in 2006. However, if a control for quality is applied, in this case looking at patents approved in at least four patent offices, then China is less visible, as seen in Fig. 4.
Chinese patents did not hit the mark internationally, even though Chinese firms tried to apply for them (Lam et al., 2017). Patent applications by Chinese firms to the European Patent Office were few (between 1980 and 2014). Envision made 38 applications and XEMC made 19, while only two and six patents, respectively, were granted them. Sinovel made 21 applications and all but one was either subsequently withdrawn or rejected. The normal rejection rate at the European Patent Office is around 50%, hence Chinese firms received a significantly higher rejection rate J. Grafström
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Fig. 3 Patents proportion by country awarded by one patent office or more. Source: OECD.stat Dataset: Patents - Technology development
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Fig. 4 Patents proportion by country awarded to four or more patent offices. Source: OECD.stat Dataset: Patents - Technology development
(Grafström, 2017). Of the top ten Chinese firms, seven obtained no patents and five recorded no applications with the European Patent Office. Results were similar at the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
In 2009, the Chinese government began to raise standards by modifying its patent law to demand absolute global novelty instead of “relative novelty” (SIPO, 2009). Tables 1 and 2 show the number of patent applications in the top inventive countries.
225Less from More: China Built Wind Power, but Gained Little Electricity
Table 1 Absolute number of patents registered at one or more patent offices (rounded to nearest whole number). Source: OECD.stat Dataset: Patents - Technology development One office registration China Germany U.S. Denmark Spain France India Patents in 2000 12 121 59 15 11 6 0 Patents in 2009 174 361 652 247 70 59 26 Patents in 2014 96 270 313 171 74 61 35
Table 2 Absolute number of patents registered at four or more patent offices (rounded to nearest whole number). Source: OECD.stat Dataset: Patents - Technology development Four office registration China Germany U.S. Denmark Spain France India Patents in 2000 0 36 4 7 1 3 0 Patents in 2009 12 123 108 122 22 13 6 Patents in 2014 8 60 48 48 19 9 9
3.2
Wind Curtailment: When a Power Plant Is Not Working
or Unconnected
China had vast wind power curtailment and consequently low utilization rates over the last two decades (Sun et al., 2015; Zhu et al., 2019). Wind curtailment happens when the power grid disrupts the power connection of installed capacity (due to issues regarding safety, technology, grid access management, etc.). Since 2010, when installed capacity took off, the curtailment rate increased, i.e., power was generated but cut off from the grid, mainly by the State Grid Corporation of China, which decided to interrupt grid connections of installed wind capacity (Dong et al., 2018). China’s curtailment statistics exceeded the rest of the world’s (Fan et al., 2015; Zeng et al., 2015; Luo et al., 2016). Curtailment between 2010 and 2013 was 3.9, 10, 20.8, and 16.2 TWh, respectively (Luo et al., 2016). Adding the findings in Zhu