SHANGHAI Electric Group aims to grab a 30 percent market share in China's offshore wind market, a sector set to boom in coming years after a slow start.

"Our aim is to be No.1 in China's offshore wind turbine market," said Jin Xiaolong, head of Shanghai Electric's wind equipment unit.

Shanghai Electric, China's largest power equipment maker, has set up two wind equipment joint ventures with German industrial conglomerate Siemens, a leading player in the sector.

Siemens has brought key turbine prototypes to these ventures, enabling Shanghai Electric to better compete with rivals, Jin said today at the Offshore Wind China 2013 conference.

While China has become the world's largest wind market, the offshore sector had a relatively slow start mainly because of costs.

Onshore wind is more economic than offshore developments, where wind farm construction takes place in a more hostile environment.

Also, the lack of an attractive on-grid tariff for offshore wind power has also dampened investor interest.

China's installed offshore wind capacity stood at 389.6 megawatts at the end of 2012.

That's less than 10 percent of the country's target of having 5,000MW by 2015.

"China needs to speed up substantially to meet the 2015 target," said Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council.

Jin admitted that the 2015 target is "unlikely" to be met.

Still, offshore capacity is set to grow faster in coming years and may reach 2,500MW to 3,000MW by 2015, he said.

Shanghai Electric will start construction of the second phase of the Donghai Bridge Wind Farm - a 116.6MW project - in the second half of this year, Jin added.