At the “Making the ‘China Opportunity’ Real for Your Cleantech Business” seminar being held by Dorsey & Whitney LLP today (May 24) in Menlo Park, Calif., panelists will discuss how U.S. renewable energy companies can survive and thrive in the Chinese green energy market. The opportunities are significant, with the Chinese clean energy and related technologies market expecting growth of up to $1 trillion—by 2013.

Speakers at the seminar will discuss the pitfalls, which are many for improperly prepared companies, and the benefits of doing business in China. Panelists at the forum will include Peter Corne, a managing partner at Dorsey & Whitney’s Shanghai Office, Fred Chang, managing director at Chrysalix Asia Venture Capital and Chris McCabe, managing director at Piper Jaffray.

The China Greentech Report 2011, by the China Greentech Initiative, estimated that China’s addressable green tech market could be US$ 500 billion to US$ 1 trillion by 2013. A lot of that will come from new energy investments like solar, wind and cleaning up existing polluters like oil and gas refineries, said Corne. The report laid out China’s commitments to clean energy over the next five years, and it has a history of meeting such commitments.

“Targets from China’s previous five-year plan were either achieved or exceeded,” Corne said.

The country can drive the growth because of how it’s structured, Corne said.

“China is a command economy. It can drive the economy through administrative direction,” he said.

The majority of opportunities in the country are in the technology sector, according to Corne.

“You can tell what the opportunities are by looking at the five-year plan. That’s really instrumental in showing where the opportunities are,” he said.

Among the primary focuses, according to the report, are renewable energy—primarily wind and solar—and electric power infrastructure, including transmission, storage, demand management and more. The country plans to have more than 200 gigawatts of renewable energy online by 2020, and the report said that may be a conservative estimate.

One of the biggest barriers is export control on the U.S. side.

“A lot of different companies are subject to that. There are obstacles on the Chinese side depending on the type of industry,” Corne said.

Companies have to be analytical and strategic when considering entering the Chinese market.

He related a story about one client trying to market a clean-coal solution. The client’s solution replicated cheaper methods already available in China, a consultant told the client. The client was told to emphasize the solution’s ability to produce algae as well as capture carbon.

“Now they’ve got a lot of opportunities rising. It’s about how opportunities are marketed,” Corne said.

Another important aspect for doing business in China is deciding how much of a company’s technology Chinese counterparts have access to.

“You don’t have the same rigorous regulation that you do in the U.S.,” Corne said. “The first thing [companies] need to do is properly strategize in regard to patents and which elements of the technology they are going to keep confidential. It’s all about keeping different lines of defense. They can use those tools in China. They can’t take the attitude that it’s no use, or take the attitude that it’s too expensive.”

It’s also about which firms decide to partner, according to Corne.

“You don’t want to link with a potential competitor. There are a lot of things you can do that American companies aren’t doing. You really need to take the IP [i.e., intellectual property] planning seriously,” he said.