Policy | ROW

Global wind power could meet 22% of demand by 2030

Global wind power could meet 12% of demand by 2020 and up to 22% by 2030, according to a study by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International.

The report, Global Wind Energy Outlook 2010, finds that 1000 GW of wind power capacity is projected to be installed by 2020. By 2030, this could reach 2300 GW.

As well as saving a total of 34 billion tons of CO2 by 2030, the wind power sector could also by then be supporting over 3 million jobs, up from current levels of around 600,000.

And many of those jobs could be in China, which is now the largest wind power market and home to the largest wind turbine manufacturing industry.

“In 2010 the 600,000 workers of the wind industry put up a new wind turbine every 30 minutes – one in three of those turbines was erected in China,” says Sven Teske of Greenpeace International. “By 2030, the market could be three times bigger than today, leading to a €202 billion investment.”

The report, which was launch in Beijing ahead of the China Wind Power 2010 event, forecasts that China’s installed capacity of 29 MW (as of the end of 2009) could increase ten-fold by 2020.

And China is not the only new kid on the block. A significant proportion of wind power growth is now taking place outside the industrialised world, says GWEC chair Klaus Rave. “By 2030, we expect that around half the world’s wind farms will be located in developing countries and emerging economies,” he adds.

For further information:
www.gwec.net/
www.greenpeace.org/
www.gwec.net/fileadmin/documents/Publications/GWEO%202010%20final.pdf

14 October 2010

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