Shanghai Electric Co, the largest Chinese maker of mechanical equipment and sales, formed a power electronics joint venture with Canada's Xantrex Technology Inc for the growing renewable power markets in China.

The two partners invested a total of US$20 million in the Shanghai Electric Xantrex Power Electronics Co Ltd, in which Shanghai Electric holds 51 percent.

The joint venture was announced after a business and government delegation led by Gordon Campbell, premier of Canada's British Columbia, paid a visit to the city over the past two days.

The venture will focus on wind and solar energy applications - including design, manufacture and sale of advanced power electronics - for the Chinese market, Canadian officials said.

"British Columbia has expertise in the development of innovative, green technology," Campbell said at a business luncheon yesterday. "And there are opportunities in China, which has a rapidly growing economy and is looking for ways to expand that are environmentally sustainable."

He added the joint venture is not only a simple business partnership but an initiative that benefits the two sides economically and environmentally.

British Columbia, the westernmost province in Canada, plans to reduce its greenhouse gases emission by 33 percent by 2016. About 90 percent of the energy in use by then should be clean one.

Meanwhile, China's new regulation on renewable energy is a state-sponsored commitment that requires 15 percent of the country's energy mix to be from renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, hydro and biomass by 2020.

(Shanghai Daily November 30, 2007)