The global wind market is expected to go on growing this year with more than 40GW (gigawatts) of new wind power capacity to be added, according to a five-year industry forecast by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
By 2015, the global installed wind power capacity will more than double to 450GW, from 194.4GW at the end of 2010. This is expected to include a growing contribution from offshore wind, primarily in the North Sea.
GWEC’s forecast assumes an average growth rate of 18.2% per year, which is conservative compared to the 28% cumulative capacity growth in the sector over the last decade. By 2015, annual market additions are expected to reach 60.5GW, up from 35.8GW in 2010.
“The year 2010 was a tough year also for our industry, but 2011 is looking up,” said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s secretary general, while introducing the bullish report.
“We paid the price for the 2008/09 financial crisis last year, and now we’re back on track,” he added.
GWEC said its assessment had been underpinned by strong investment in wind power throughout 2010, which rose by 31% compared to the previous year, and reached a record of $96 billion.
The main market driving growth will remain China, which, in 2010, accounted for almost half of the global capacity additions (16.5GW), underpinned by ambitious long-term government plans, supportive policies and staggering investment in the sector.
Annual additions are expected to exceed 20GW by 2015, which would result in China surpassing its target of installing 70GW of new wind power in the next five years, as adopted in the Beijing government’s new five-year plan.
Coupled with India’s steady growth, GWEC expects a total capacity of 174.6GW to be operational across Asia by the end of 2010.
However, Europe will remain the second-largest market until 2015, with capacity additions totaling 60GW, bringing wind power installations up to 146.1GW.
While Germany and Spain will remain the leading markets, a larger number of other strong markets are set to make an increasing contribution. In addition, large-scale offshore developments are expected to account for a growing share of the new wind capacity.
The North American market is expected to remain subdued for the next two years, due to legislative uncertainty at federal level in the US and Canada.
That said, GWEC expects that by 2014, the market will once again approach its 2009 size. In the next five years, the total installed capacity in the region is expected to more than double to reach 94.2GW.
In Latin America, encouraging developments in Brazil, Mexico, Chile and elsewhere have led the organization to expect that at the end of 2015, the total installed wind capacity will have grown to 19GW across the region, up from just 2GW at the end of 2010.
Wind power is now a global industry, with installations in around 80 countries. Expectation is that, among the new markets expected to develop over that period, Africa will start to feature.
