The executive until this month in charge of the world’s biggest wind fleet – China Longyuan president Li Enyi – has quit his job and been detained by the Chinese authorities, amid a wide-scale crackdown on corruption in the energy sector.

Longyuan is the largest wind developer in the world and a subsidiary of energy conglomerate China Energy Investment Corp (CEIC), formed by the merger last year between China’s biggest coal miner Shenhua and major power utility Guodian.

Longyuan – which disclosed Li’s detention for “suspected serious duty crimes” following his resignation ten days earlier – owns some 18.4GW of CEIC’s 35GW wind portfolio. Li has served on the board and held the top job at Longyuan since 2013. The company told shareholders it was not aware of the nature of the charges against him.

Li’s detention came amidst the anti-corruption agency of the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing crackdown on corruption in the energy sector. This year alone, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) of the party has arrested a series of top energy officials and state-owned enterprise executives over alleged corruption, including a high-profile arrest of former National Energy Administration head, Nur Bekri.

CCDI’s statistics suggest that more than 90 top officials and company heads in the industry have been detained since 2012, with detentions made public almost always ending in convictions.

Li’s departure coincided with falling Longyuan power production figures over the past two months, further hammering market confidence and leading to a 5% drop in its stock price on 12 December.

In November, the firm saw wind power production reduced y-o-y by 14.8%. Its wind production growth in the past 11 months this year also underperformed compared to the average market rate, equity analysts of Shenwan Securities noted.

Following the merger between Guodian and Shenhua, CEIC has completed its asset restructuring, but mainly by swapping and reorganising its coal mining and coal power assets. Wind portfolios continued to be operated separately by different entities of the conglomerate, sparking concerns of potential synergy over wind subsidy arrangements.

After Li’s resignation, “the company has been under normal production and operation,” China Longyuan said in a statement.

Wind

Boss of wind giant Longyuan quits amid corruption probe