The Global Wind Energy Council published its Global Wind Report this week, in which it has predicted that the global wind industry will install more than 300 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity over the next five years.
The 2018 Global Wind Report is the 14th edition of the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC) annual report, providing a comprehensive overview of the global wind industry. The report details how the global wind energy industry is now active in over 90 countries — 30 of which have over 1 gigawatt (GW) of wind installed, while 9 countries boast over 10 GW of installed capacity.
This year GWEC also completely redesigned its report, as Ben Backwell, GWEC CEO, explains:
“We have changed the way we gather, analyse and share data,” explained Ben Backwell, CEO of GWEC. “This year’s Global Wind Report is built on our new and improved Market Intelligence function that offers unmatched exclusive data and insights. We are growing our team and are more dedicated than ever to steering the industry and supporting our members into new and exciting opportunities for wind energy.”
The lead finding from this 14th edition of the Global Wind Report is the prediction that the global wind industry will install in excess of 300 GW of new capacity over the next five years, requiring over 55 GW of new capacity each year through 2023. Further, in the short-term, the authors of the report point to auction and tender programs as the primary driver for new wind installations — in addition to government-led renewable energy targets.
Beyond these main drivers, the GWEC report also identified three further global trends driving global wind growth, including changing business models of industry participants, unlocking further volume through corporate procurement outside of mature markets, and how value-focused solutions — such as hybrid generation plants — are unlocking more opportunities for the wind industry as a whole.
“2018 was a good year for the global wind industry, with installations remaining above 50 GW,” said Karin Ohlenforst, Director of Market Intelligence at GWEC. “The dominance of onshore wind power is not surprising given continued and growing investment, with market-based mechanisms like auctions, tenders and Green Certificates being the main drivers of new onshore installations, accounting for 35% of total installations. 2018 was also a pivotal year for the offshore industry, particularly in Asia. If governments remain committed, offshore wind will become a truly global market in the next five years.”
The report builds on GWEC’s annual figures published in late February which showed that 51.3 GW of new wind capacity in 2018, led by China which installed 21.2 GW of new onshore wind capacity, and 1.8 GW of offshore wind.
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