EurObserv'ER's 2010 wind power barometer

For the first time in 20 years, the growth of the global wind power market faltered, stumbling by 5.8% to 35.7 GW in 2010. On one hand, the North American market has taken a knock while the European market has slowed down, on the other hand, Asian market growth has crept up steadily and now has a grip on more than half the global market. At the end of 2010 we had 194.5 GW of wind power installed across the world among which 84.3 GW installed in the European Union. Germany and Spain lead the European Union list for installed wind power with respectively 27.21 GW and 20.68 GW but when this capacity is divided by the population, Denmark ranks first with 686, 6 kW/1000 inhabitants followed by Spain with 449.6 KW/1000 inhabitants. 2010 was a record year for offshore wind power. The offshore share of the total wind power market rose to 12.2% in 2010. First available estimates indicate that the European Union's wind energy electricity output for 2010 should reach 147 TWh, which is an 11.2% rise on 2009. In 2010, the global leading manufacturer is probably Chinese. Back to 2009, the top 4 wind turbines suppliers were Vestas (Denmark), GE Wind (Usa), Sinovel (China) and Enercon (Germany). (A.C.)