The rush to wind continues apace, as global installed capacity of wind turbines reached 74 GW by the end of 2006, after additions of 14,985 MW during the year. It has been forecast that installed capacity of wind power will double to 142 GW by 2010 and will grow further.

The last year has seen some changes in the national rankings in terms of wind power. Sudden activity has pushed some markets forward while other countries slow down as the wind market matures. The five big markets remain the leaders, Germany, Spain, the USA, India and Denmark, and China is about to join the top table. In 2005, the big surprise was the recovery and surge ahead of the USA, which has continued in 2006 and is expected to catapult the USA ahead to parity with Germany by 2010, each with 25,000 MW of installed capacity. The other feature of development has been the widening of the market, with seven countries joining the 1 Gigawatt club, four in Europe; two in Asia and Canada. These countries will move up to the top rank in the next few years and new wind power countries will emerge. As space becomes more scarce and first class wind sites are used up there is an increasing trend to repowering existing wind plants with larger turbines, and constructing off-shore wind farms using 3 to 4 MW turbines and 5 MW prototypes are being trialed.

Key Findings

• An important factor to emerge is the variation of conditions from country to country, which means that what may be a serious problem in one country is not significant in another.

• Significant industry issues have emerged as operational data becomes available from the major wind power operators such as E.ON Netz, Eltra, ESB. This has opened many questions about the assumptions and claims made for wind power. The report details these and evaluates them, discussing solutions and pitfalls.

• The initial response from much of the wind industry was denial and the labelling of many of these reports as ‘myths’ despite their origin from such experienced and authoritative sources. The industry is now settling into a more mature phase and there is more open discussion of solutions to the problems, and many of these solutions are being implemented constructively.