Rapid Growth of Wind Power Despite the Financial Crisis
By Rick Grout
For the 5th year in a row, China has doubled its installed wind power capacity. Wind power capacity in the world grew 31% in 2009.
The Global Wind Energy Council released a report on new global wind power statistics this week and these are some of its main findings.
In total, 37.5 GW of wind power were added in 2009, bringing total worldwide installations up to 157.9 GW. One third of these new installations were in China.
The US, despite projections that wind power would drop due to the recession, continued to see growth and remains on top in total installed capacity (but who knows for how long).
“The continued rapid growth of wind power despite the financial crisis and economic downturn is testament to the inherent attractiveness of the technology, which is clean, reliable and quick to install. Wind power has become the power technology of choice [for] a growing number of countries around the world,” said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s Secretary General. “Copenhagen didn’t bring us any closer to a global price on carbon, but wind energy continued to grow due to national energy policy in our main markets and also because many governments in [sic] prioritised renewable energy development in their economic recovery plans.”
The global market for wind turbine installations was worth about $63 billion (€45 billion) in 2009 and employs about half a million people now, GWEC estimates.
Top Countries in 2009
1) US: 35.2 GW of installed capacity (up from 25.2 GW in 2008, 26.5% increase)
2) Germany: 25.8 GW of installed capacity (up from 23.9 GW in 2008, 5.1% increase)
3) China: 25.1 GW of installed capacity (up from 12.1 GW in 2008, 34.7% increase)
4) Spain: 19.1 GW of installed capacity (up from 16.7 GW in 2008, 6.6% increase)
5) India: 10.9 GW of installed capacity (up from 9.7 GW in 2008, 3.4% increase
