Global Wind Energy Market Expected To Reach 59 GW
FTI Consulting has revised its forecasts for the global wind market for 2015, which is now expected to reach 59 GW.
The global business advisory firm updated its forecast as part of FTI Intelligence’s latest renewable energy publication, Global Wind Market Update — H2 2015 Briefing, published on Monday. The briefing highlights updates in wind market forecasts, as well as key developments.
FTI Intelligence, the author of parent group FTI Consulting’s publications, have revised its forecasts, now predicting the global wind market will march towards its second consecutive record year with new installations reaching 59 GW in 2015, compared to 52 GW installed in 2014. Furthermore, total installations between 2015 and 2019 are now expected to reach an impressive 592 GW, representing a 3.3% compound annual growth rate between 2014 and 2024.
“In 2015, the global wind market will reach a new record of activity, driven by the extraordinary strength of China’s market,” said Feng Zhao, Director in the FTI-CL Energy practice. “However, we can still expect some volatility over the next five years, before annual installations build to the next peak around 2021.”
New installation forecasts for North America across 2015 to 2019 were upgraded by 12.4%, with strong growth in Canada next year expected to boost figures, alongside “optimism created by the political debate about the revised US federal Clean Power Plan.” FTI Intelligence also increased its forecast numbers for the Asia Pacific region by 5.6% by 2019, with expected strong growth continuing in China pushing those figures up.
“Although the wind market still suffers from policy uncertainty, continual improvements in technology and innovations in finance are changing ‘facts on the ground’ and making wind power directly competitive with fossil fuels in growing areas of the world – despite low oil and gas prices,” says Aris Karcanias, Managing Director at FTI Consulting and Co-Lead of the Company’s Clean Energy practice. “There is a new sense of maturity and confidence in the wind industry, as well as an ongoing process of consolidation around companies with strong financial and industrial capabilities.”
Vestas leads the way for wind turbine OEMs for intake during the first half of 2015, with near record orders of 3 GW in the second quarter of 2015. Chinese companies Goldwind and United Power took second and third place respectively.
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It is good to see wind installs/yr growing again, after being flat at ~40 from 2009-2013 (when you blend the USA 12/13 numbers). Between 2005 and 2009 it was growing at ~30%/yr. If instead of flat there had been growth then 13/14/15 would have been 5%(46.8/49.1/51.6), 10%(56.4/62/68.2), 15%(67.3/77.4/89). 20%(79.8/95.8/115). Compound growth! That is why continued growth of the industry is important.
Oh and if has stay at 30, well then (110/143/186). Would’ve could’ve should’ve 🙂
Perhaps wind will ‘take of’ after the meeting in November in Paris. 😉
It IS nice to see growth again, however small. I think we are reaching a tipping point where even US conservatives admit the climate is changing for the worse. The US has been a big part of the problem. It could be a big part of the solution.
As long as catching up is packaged as leadership.
World wide wind installation by end 2014 was 370 GW. With this year installation is estimated to 59 GW, it means wind passed 400 GW mark back in July, and current level should be at ~418 GW wind turbine capacity worldwide.
It is strange that solar capacity production is almost the same now.
Wind is cheaper so it should be deployed in higher amounts right?
There’s more anti-wind NIMBYism although it will probably reduce as people get more used to seeing them.
Deployment figures don’t tell you much.
The capacity factor of a modern wind turbine is about 40% (that means it produces 40% of what it could theoretically produce if it ran 24/7 at full blast). Solar panels have a capacity factor of about 20%.
As such, 60GW of wind power generates as much electricity as 120GW of solar. Or in other words: wind is still leading by a huge margin.
For both wind and solar the capacity factor is a function of the location.
In locations with good wind it makes sense to install wind turbines. In places with no wind but many sun-hours per year solar maybe more competitive. Wind and solar maps are critical to define policy to install where the return on pollution reduction would be maximum for economic and environmental reasons. Thoughtful selection of sites will accelerate the demise of the fossil fuel economy.
At any rate I see fossil fuels going belly up by 2025.
Don’t forget that wind tends to produce more in the winter, and solar tends to produce more in the summer. Also solar produces during a lot of the peak usage hours in a day. Point being, they tend to balance each other out, so my favorite, is both.
The one huge advantage of solar, is that it scales down the farthest efficiently, but wind scales down to a handful of megawatts too, versus say a 7 billion dollar nuke. Think for example of the solar lanterns out competing kerosene ones in africa and asia. They are tiny systems costing a handful of dollars and the decision to buy one can be made by someone with very little power, and implemented very quickly. I read kerosene lanterns world wide consume about as much fossil fuels as the US airline industry.
yes
Dear Frank -thanks for these talking points that I have heard so often that it is impossible to forget. However local needs vary.
The fact is the investment in renewables should go FIRST to wherever it would do most damage to the fossil fuel economy. This means choices of renewable should be governed by maximum electricity production per dollar that will accelerate closing fossil fuel power plants and bankrupting fossil fuel companies. This strategy translates to contributing to maximum pollution reduction. Anything else means more kids with asthma, more old people losing their lives to bronchitis, more medical costs and more human suffering.
In fact offshore wind power is more productive during the hottest hours of summer per dollar than solar even if the offshore installation makes even more electricity in the winter than it makes in the summer. So in the northeast it made sense to install offshore before solar, especially a couple of years ago when PV was so expensive. In southern California with over 50% more sun hours per year in less than the best wind areas, solar may be the first choice. Some places may have the local parameters to use solar and wind to balance their complimentary productivity under different climate conditions economically.
The use of small scale solar or small uneconomical wind in places with no electricity grid makes sense. However if we want to rid the planet from fossil fuel pollution by 2015 large scale wind and large scale solar feeding the grid and feeding backup storage such large scale batteries or pumped hydro is the way to go. When it comes to renewables I am totally agnostic, I have no preference, only what helps accelerate the total elimination of dirty and dangerous production of electricity.
We don’t want to bankrupt the fossil fuel industry too fast. We need to install alternatives rapidly and let the FF industry fade away.
We don’t want to go to the airport only to find there is no longer fuel for airplanes and no alternative for traveling where we need to go.
We would probably be smart to look harder at the external costs of FF than we do. Let’s get diesel out of urban areas in order to lower health spending. And get coal off our grids for the same reason. Electric buses, electric taxis, limited access for ICEVs in urban areas. More RE installations where coal is the most heavily used.
Reducing health impacts will free up money and make the economy more robust. That will mean more money for further RE installations.
Humbug! Yes we do want to bankrupt fossil fuels as fast as possible. This is rearguard action talk in defense of dirty and dangerous energy.
Clean alternative fuels are developing very fast, faster than the ten years if will take for dirty fossils to go belly up. As the Cretaceous extinction proved nature hates a vacuum and mammals that had existed for hundreds of millions of years developed very fast after the dinausor extinction. Well the economy hates a vacuum as well. If you have been following all the clean and safe fuel alternatives you would be less frightened of a speedy elimination of cancer causing and respiratory disease inducing fossil fuel pollution.
Your argument clearly shows that you have no idea of the geographic spread of disease due to toxics in the air. You do not clean the cities first when the dirty air is a multistage even multi country problem.
Bankrupting fossil fuels within ten years would be impossible without cratering global economies.
Temper your desires with a bit of common sense.
I am afraid dear Bob you are spouting nonsense either because you do not know or the evil Koch brothers have you on their payroll.
What is impossible is for dirty and dangerous fossil fuels to survive past ten years, otherwise the world economies will be wiped out. It is not just the cost of global climate change that intemperate types like you forget but whose costs are astronomical. It is not the just the cost of healthcare that people are paying without being aware of the true hidden costs of dirty energy.
Simple energy dollar and cents increasingly make it impossible to invest in toxic and polluting fossil fuels. Are you aware that in the past few years, 26 coal companies have gone bankrupt and 264 mines have closed? And the fossil fuel catastrophe has not yet fully kicked in full force.
Is is intemperate to expect people to sacrifice their children’s health to keep the Saudi King Salman and the likes of the Koch brothers solvent. Market forces will not allow this.
So cool your jets with what sound like dirty fuel fear mongering.
“I am afraid dear Bob you are spouting nonsense either because you do not know or the evil Koch brothers have you on their payroll.”
There’s a third possibility. It could be that you have your head rammed up your back end.
There’s no route for getting off fossil fuels within ten years. You have no idea how large a job we have in front of us. We could not expand solar panel, wind turbine, battery, and EV production that rapidly.
And that’s if the world had the political will to move us full speed into FF replacement.
We’ve been paying the costs of coal related health care for over 100 years. There’s no critical event that would cause us to quit coal abruptly. We will gradually move off coal and enjoy fewer coal caused problems over the next 10 to 20 years.
I’m very aware how many coal mines and coal plants have closed. I’ve been posting about it for a few years, first about the likelihood of “peak coal”.
I’m very aware of where we are on our route off oil and natural gas.
And all of that is why I know that you’re posting idiotic stuff.
There is forth possibility
you have your head rammed up your back end. It smells like you are trying to earn your dirty keep.
You are hallucinating when you write:
“There’s no critical event that would cause us to quit coal abruptly.”
The event has already happened: fossil fuels already cost more than clean renewables in many markets.
All the Koch brothers, Exxons, and other dirty fuelers have been dead wrong where we will be in 2015. There are even more grotesquely wrong in their predictions for 2025.
The cat is out of the bag. These pathetic luddites (including you) cannot put it back in the bag. Fossil fuels are dead as a door nail valueless commodities soon as valuable as the dirt that surrounds them. Enough nonsense from you.
Sorry, I have an especially low tolerance for foolish stuff this evening.
You are simply typically foolish tonight and everynight if you think we do not smell whose bidding you are doing.
The dirty fuel Koch brothers, Blankenships, the Exxons, the BPs and other climate change deniers are your bosses. I was told your behavior is typical of trolls.
No coy apologies.
“There’s no critical event that would cause us to quit coal abruptly.” except a climate change catastrophe.
And of course there is fourth possibility that you are the one that “you have your head rammed up your back end” in your own words. I can smell it, you sound like someone on the payroll of the dirty fossil fuel industry.
Above all the key critical event that has sealed the fate of the fossil fuels has already taken place. In many markets wind electricity is already less expensive than dirty fuels. It is the reason that 26 coal companies have gone bankrupt and 264 mines have closed.
Do the math if you can and then you will see how foolish you are tonight