Different routes to technology acquisition and innovation system building? China's and India's wind turbine industries

Shaping economic development to be environmentally compatible is becoming increasingly urgent. The wind turbine industry has been successfully developed as a domestic industry in both China and India. Important success factors here are policies to facilitate learning and integrated environmental, technological and industrial policy schemes. There are clear differences between the countries, e.g. with regard to the importance of electric utilities, the international focus of the main players and the level of industrial policies to support domestic suppliers. There is not just ‘one successful way’ of developing a domestic wind turbine industry: India has taken a more market driven approach compared to China, where the development is more government induced and is taking place even more rapidly.