As global wind energy growth stabilizes, China’s growth is set to triple by 2025, reaching an estimated 347.2 GW by 2025, says GlobalData.
Research and consulting firm GlobalData forecast in a report from earlier this year that China’s installed wind capacity will grow from 115.6 GW in 2014 to a whopping 347.2 GW by 2025. China’s growth will take place alongside a global stabilization towards the end of the forecast period, with annual installations peaking at 56.8 GW in 2022.
Interestingly, unlike other wind power giants like the UK, China’s wind capacity will be dominated by onshore wind, which is expected to account for over 96% of all installations, or around 334.7 GW — that leaves just 12.4 GW for offshore wind.
Despite these impressive figures, analysts still believe that China is encountering a bottleneck.
“The slowdown has been caused by the inability of China’s underdeveloped electrical grid to accommodate the increasing number of wind turbines in remote areas,” said Harshavardhan Reddy Nagatham, GlobalData’s Analyst covering Renewable Energy. “Although recent government efforts have supported the expansion and upgrade of the grid, future annual wind installations will not grow as much as before and will range between 20 GW and 22 GW each year during the next decade.”
China’s wind energy sector grew nearly twenty-fold between 2007 and 2014, growing from 5.9 GW to 115.6 GW, so it makes sense that analysts are calling China’s future growth “slow.” Nevertheless, it will emerge as one of the global wind energy leaders.
Globally, wind installations are expected to reach 962.6 GW by the end of 2025, a figure GlobalData believes will be primarily driven by the Asia-Pacific region.
“There will be sustainable future growth in India, Australia, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Taiwan, as APAC wind installations are forecast to increase from 148.2 GW in 2014 to 437.8 GW by 2025, accounting for approximately 45.5% of the global total,” explains Nagatham. “Wind installations will also gain momentum in South and Central America, with countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico adding up to 45.6 GW during the forecast period. The Middle East and Africa region, which is presently at a nascent stage of wind market development, will be the other significant contributor to capacity additions.”
In February, GlobalData analyst Pranav Srivastava predicted that China would not only be categorized as the world’s largest wind energy installer but also the leading wind energy generator as soon as 2016 — a title it will claim from the US, a title the US wind industry has been tightly holding on to and promoting for several years now.
GlobalData’s figures are up significantly on figures provided by MAKE Consulting earlier this year. MAKE predicted in June that China will install 230 GW of wind power capacity by 2024.
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