As US moves to renewable energy, wind turbines from Xinjiang may get caught in political tempest
- Xinjiang-based Goldwind has supplied material for a large US project that will deliver clean wind power for Microsoft, shipping records show
- As more information emerges about the suspected use of forced labour in the region, the US government has begun restricting trade from the area
At the new Las Lomas wind project in southwest Texas, French energy giant Engie’s wind turbines will soon deliver hundreds of megawatts of clean power to Microsoft.
The 48 turbines, scattered for miles near the Mexican border, are expected to be up and running in January, and they will help bring Microsoft closer to its goal of 100 per cent renewable energy by the year 2025.
When Engie and Microsoft announced their deal last year, they hailed it as an act of social responsibility: two corporations moving towards carbon neutrality amid the looming climate crisis.
But according to customs records, shipping data and corporate documents reviewed by the South China Morning Post, their business at Las Lomas may end up entangling them in another problem of an entirely different order.
Shipping records show that wind turbines at Las Lomas were supplied by an energy company partly owned by the Chinese government in Xinjiang, the far western region of China that is not only rich in oil and coal, but also in wind and solar energy production – and where Beijing is accused of detaining at least 1 million Uygurs and members of other Muslim minority groups in internment camps and subjecting them to political indoctrination and forced labour.
Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology Co Ltd, China’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, better known as Goldwind, also announced this month it had signed a separate deal with the powerful Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), the quasi-military entity that runs huge portions of the vast region’s economy, and was sanctioned by the US Treasury Department this year for human rights violations.