U.N. panel approves Chinese wind farms for financing

LONDON (Reuters) - A United Nations climate panel decided on Friday to conditionally register 17 Chinese wind farms previously under review, making them eligible for climate financing worth nearly $150 million, a U.N. official said.

The official said some of the projects would receive full registration once "specific corrections" were made. Corrections are typically minor modifications to the project applications.

Under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), companies can invest in clean energy projects like wind farms in emerging countries like China. In return, they receive offset credits called Certified Emissions Reductions (CERs) which can be used toward greenhouse gas emissions targets or sold for profit.

According to the projects' specifications, the wind farms are expected to produce some 8 million tonnes of CERs through 2012, worth over 100 million euros ($146 million) at current prices.

UN data showed investors in the projects included Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse.

Several months ago, the CDM's executive board, based in Bonn, Germany, decided to review whether the 17 new Chinese wind projects with total capacity of up to 900 megawatts qualified under the scheme after noting a drop in national wind power tariff rates.

The CDM is supposed to fund additional cuts in carbon emissions, but if projects are self-sufficient it may be that they are no longer cutting emissions below normal trends.

Lower tariffs can imply Beijing sees wind power as competitive with other energy sources and therefore does not require financial support.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by Anthony Barker and Andy Bruce)