The United States passed Germany to become world #1 in wind power installations, and China’s total capacity doubled for the fourth year in a row. Total worldwide installations in 2008 were more than 27,000 megawatts (MW), dominated by the three main markets in Europe, North America and Asia.
Global wind energy capacity grew by 28.8% last year, even higher than the average over the past decade, to reach total global installations of more than 120, 800 MW (120.8 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2008. Over 27,000 MW (27 GW) of new wind power generation capacity came online in 2008, 36% more than in 2007.
"These figures speak for themselves: there is huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world. Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse cases must peak and begin to decline to avoid dangerous climate change,”said Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of GWEC. "The 120 GW of global wind capacity in place at the end of 2008 will produce 260 TWh and save 158 million tons of CO2 every year."
Wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets. The global wind market for turbine installations in 2008 was worth about 36.5bn EUR or 47.5bn US$.
See full Press Release.
Posts
