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China leads the world in record-breaking year for wind power

In 2020, China installed more wind power in a single year than any other country in history, according to data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The organisation’s market intelligence division found that the country put 52 GW of new wind capacity in place last year – doubling its rate of installations when compared to 2019. 

Overall, the Asia-Pacific region – which includes countries such as India, Australia and Kazakhstan – installed 56 GW of new wind last year, a 78% year-on-year uplift. This figure is nearly the same as the total wind capacity installed across the world in 2019. 

‘The incredible and rapid growth of wind power in the region has been led by China, which now has more wind power capacity than Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America combined,’ says Feng Zhao, Head of Market Intelligence and Strategy at GWEC. ‘We were expecting an installation rush in China last year due to the phase out of the onshore wind Feed-in Tariff by the end of 2020, but the Chinese wind market exceeded our original forecasts by over 73%.’

GWEC analysis also shows that China needs to install more than 50 GW of wind capacity per year until 2025, and then 60 GW from 2026 onwards in order to reach its net zero by 2060 target. ‘Although installation levels were on track with these targets in 2020, China now must ensure that this level of growth can be sustained in a subsidy-free era,’ Zhao adds. 

Australia (1,097 MW), Japan (449 MW), Kazakhstan (300 MW), and Sri Lanka (88 MW) all had record years for wind power in 2020. Although India ranked second in terms of new wind power capacity in Asia-Pacific, the year was the slowest on record for wind installations in the country since 2004, owing to what GWEC calls ‘regulatory and infrastructure bottlenecks.’  

Data from BloombergNEF (BNEF) showed that the wind market commissioned nearly 

100 GW of new wind in 2020. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, installations grew 59% year-on-year. Around 93% of commissioned turbines were on land, with the addition of offshore wind farms dropping 13% on 2019 levels to 6.5 GW. 

BNEF’s analysts counted almost 58 GW of new wind capacity in China last year – even higher than GWEC’s estimate. The firm said the explosion in global wind installations is, in large part, a credit to the Chinese market.

Over twenty turbine makers supplied wind turbines to China and many of them were able to double or triple their year-on year installed capacity,’ says Leo Wang, Beijing-based Wind Associate at BNEF. But the overall picture is complicated: ‘The expiring onshore and offshore subsidies fuelled the uptick in installations. Following the lapse of onshore feed-in premiums, the market is likely to see demand drop this year.’

News Item details


Journal title: Energy World

Countries: China -

Subjects: Renewables, Wind power

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