New wind installations hit record last year

The global wind industry installed a record 117 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity last year but needs to add triple this amount annually by the end of the decade to meet climate targets, according to an industry report yesterday.

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) report said capacity installation last year was 50% higher than the year before.

Last year, new onshore wind accounted for 106 GW of the amount installed, while offshore wind accounted for 10.8 GW.

GWEC expects 158 GW of new wind installations to be added per year until 2028.

To meet targets agreed under a global climate pact, the industry must install at least 320 GW a year by 2030, taking cumulative capacity to 3 terawatts (TW), the report said.

Cumulative wind power capacity passed 1 TW for the first time last year.

“It took us over 40 years to reach the 1 TW mark of worldwide installed wind power. We now have just seven years to install the next 2 TW,” said GWEC CEO Ben Backwell.

“Growth is highly concentrated in a few big countries like China, the US, Brazil and Germany, and we need many more countries to remove barriers and improve market frameworks to scale up wind installations.”

The top five markets for wind installations were China, followed by the United States, Brazil, Germany and India.

China set a new record with 75 GW of new installations commissioned, representing nearly 65% of the global total, while Latin America also experienced record growth – up 21% from the year before – led by Brazil which had 4.8 GW of new installations. – Reuters