On 25 April the Global Wind Energy Council released its flagship publication 'Global Wind Report: Annual Market Update' in Delhi, reporting that more than 54 GW of wind power was installed across the global market in 2016, which now encompasses more than 90 countries, including 9 with more than 10 GW installed, and 29 which have now passed the 1000 MW mark. Cumulative capacity grew by 12.6% to reach a total of 486.8 GW.
"Wind power is now successfully competing with heavily subsidised incumbents across the globe, building new industries, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs and leading the way towards a clean energy future" said GWEC secretary general Steve Sawyer. "We are well into a period of disruptive change, moving away from power systems centred on a few large, polluting plants towards markets increasingly dominated by a range of widely distributed renewable energy sources. We need to get to a zero emissions power system well before 2050 if we are to meet our climate change and development goals."
Wind power penetration levels continue to increase, led by Denmark, pushing 40%, then Uruguay, Portugal and Ireland with well over 20%, Spain and Cyprus around 20%, Germany at 16%. The big markets of China, the US and Canada now get 4%, 5.5%, and 6% of their power from wind respectively. GWEC's rolling five year forecast sees almost 60 GW of new wind installations in 2017, rising to an annual market of about 75 GW by 2021, to bring cumulative installed capacity of over 800 GW by the end of 2021.
Growth will be led by Asia. China will continue to lead all markets, but India set a new record for installations this past year and has a real chance of meeting the government's very ambitious targets for the sector.
Market fundamentals are strong in North America, and Europe's steady if unspectacular march towards its 2020 targets has been given a big boost by the year's most exciting new development: the dramatic price reductions for offshore wind. Europe will continue to lead the offshore market, but the low prices have attracted the attention of policymakers worldwide, particularly in North America and Asia.
"Overall, we have a lot of confidence in the wind power market going forward, as the technology continues to improve, prices continue to go down and the call for clean, renewable power to reduce emissions, clean our air and create new jobs and new industries only gets stronger with each passing year", concluded Sawyer.
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