New GWEC Report Shows 160% Growth for Global Wind Industry in Next Five Years

[Nathanael]

Wind power growth continues to surges, and the future only looks bright:


A new forecast from the Global Wind Energy Council shows the world's wind capacity will grow by 160% over the next five years.

Despite the current economic hardships, the wind industry will continues its monumental rise. At the end of 2010 installed wind capacity from around the world will stand at 158.5-gigawatts. The GWEC expects this number to rise to 409 GW by 2014. By 2014 the annual market for wind installations will be 60 GW.


Link: http://www.energyboom.com/wind/number-one-energy-source-new-gwec-report-shows-160-growth-global-wind-industry-next-five-years

[Statistical]

1. Good but we need more emission free power. Law of large numbers is catching up

Today electrical power consumption is slightly under 20,000 TWh and wind provided 340 TWh in 2009.
So that puts winds contribution at 1.7% of global electrical demand.

Installed capacity will grow to 409GW in 2014.
Assuming 26% capacity factor (current global capacity factor per wind industry).
In 2014: 409GW * 0.26 * 24 * 365 = 931 TWh generated.

Bad news #1.
DOE projects global electrical demand to rise to 23,200 TWh in 2015 and projected to grow at 2.4% annually. 931 TWh in 2014 is about 5% of the rising electrical demand.

Bad news #2.
In the past (2004-2006 & 2007-2009) installed wind capacity doubled about every 3 years. Based on 2010 projections that will slow to doubling every 4 years (22% capacity growth). 60GW gains in 2014 on 409GW capacity is 14.6% growth rate which is more like doubling every 5 years. This is what some people don't understand. Law of large numbers catches up eventually. If you have a business with $100 in revenue, doubling revenue is pretty easy. Doubling a business making a million dollars is harder. Doubling a business making a billion dollars is even harder. Doubling a business making tens of billions of dollars is virtually impossible.

Despite the fanatical belief by some that wind can solve all our problems it simply can't. Law of large numbers will catch up and installed wind capacity will grow in nominal terms but growth as a percentage will slow. Thus we won't keep on doubling every 3, or 4, or even 5 years. As installed capacity rises the rate of doubling will slow. Every industry goes through this and wind is no different. We should pursue wind but we simply need to build every power-source as fast as possible to break off of fossil fuels in our lifetime.

If wind capacity is at 409GW in 2014 and grows at 14.6% compounded annually over the next 6 years we are looking at a ballpark of 929 GW installed by 2020. The good news is annual installations in 2020 would be around 136 GW per year. Compare that to all wind energy on the planet current is 159 GW. It is like adding entire current global capacity ever year which is pretty amazing. Still electrical power by 2020 will be 26,200 TWh. 929GW @ 26% capacity would provide 2,100 TWh or about 8% of global electricity.

Remember electricity only makes up about 1/3 of all fossil fuel usage. To replace all forms of power would require a magnitude more energy and that is trickier (to a wall socket a watt is a watt is a watt, not so for "specialized power like transportation).

[kristopher]

2. You are asserting a claim about renewable energy that originates at RW think tanks

I KNOW you KNOW it is a straw man, because look at your wording "Despite the fanatical belief by some that wind can solve all our problems...". Who are these "some" that you are speaking of?

No energy analyst claims "wind can solve all our problems". That is a strawman perpetuated by right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. The portfolio of renewable energy sources include wind, solar PV, solar thermal, wave, current tidal, geothermal, and biofuels, between them there is no question they can replace not only fossil fuels, but eventually nuclear also.


You wrote:
"Today electrical power consumption is slightly under 20,000 TWh so that is just shy of 5% of grid powered by wind.
Bad news #1. DOE projects global electrical demand to rise to 23.2 TWh in 2015 and projected to grow at 2.4% annually."

Like to clarify?

[Statistical]

3. typo I fixed it. Demand in 2015 is 23,200 TWh.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/electricity.html

23.2 trillion kWh = 23,200 TWh. I find it easier to use metric the way it was designed (TWh vs trillions of kWh)

[Statistical]

4. "between them there is no question they can replace not only fossil fuels, but eventually nuclear"

That is a strawman perpetuated by right wing think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. The portfolio of renewable energy sources include wind, solar PV, solar thermal, wave, current tidal, geothermal, and biofuels, between them there is no question they can replace not only fossil fuels, but eventually nuclear also.

Sorry that is a joke right?

Of wind, solar, hydro, and tidal wind is the only technology in short term that can provide meaningful increases in delivered energy.

Solar. Really? I mean you want to go there. Solar (PV & thermal) provided 0.02% (rounded) of total electrical demand. How many times will it need to double before it is 1% of electrical power. The unsubsidized cost of PV solar is $0.30 or more. Thermal solar is a little better but even the planned plants are tiny and the numbers are pathetically small. It would take an increase by a magnitude of 10x to even get to the whole % part of global energy.

Hydro is a good form of power but it is nearing peak capacity in many parts of the world. Lots of plans to bust damns not build more. Hydro causes extensive ecological damage. While hydro will slowly grow we will not see a massive increase in hydro as new capacity will compete against damn busting and energy growth to keep net gains small. Wind will double in next 4 years. Hydro will not.


wave & current - no meaningful power plants have even been developed. Maybe they will someday but until we see megawatts of capacity and unsubsidized price it is silly to guestimate how much they will provide.

Of all the alternative energies, wind is the only one anyone (in a place of power) is making claims can provide a "substantial" increase in capacity over next two decades.

Even the most optimistic goals of real plans (like wind industry and countries) are far more modest than your lofty dreams.

[kristopher]

5. Solar, wave, and geothermal are far less speculative...

...than the claims that all nuclear plants are going to last 60+ years, yet that is the basis you want used for nuclear evaluations.

The price trends are clear for all renewables and nuclear - nuclear loses. There are no significant technological hurdles to large scale deployment of any of the renewable technologies. Pointing to present generating capacity says NOTHING about which technology is the best going forward since the issue is political; it isn't economic nor technical.

[Statistical]

6. 2050. That is 4 decades away man.

4 decades of burning coal? I don't think it will matter what we do in 2050 the world as we know it will already be dead.

[diane in sf]

7. more right wing lies...

[Statistical]

8. YOUR CHART is a right wing lie?

Read it see at the bottom. The numbers 2-0-5-0 refers to the year 2050.

[kristopher]

9. You know the study that chart comes from.

The chart shows cost and resource size in relation to it's ability to meet forecast demand going forward.

One of the central concerns about reliance on efficiency and renewables to meet future electricity needs is that they may not be available in sufficient supply.

However, analysis of the technical potential to deliver economically practicable options for low-cost, low-carbon approaches indicates that the supply is ample to meet both electricity needs and carbon reduction targets for three decades or more based on efficiency, renewables and natural gas (see Figure ES-3).

Figure ES-3 builds a “supply curve” of the potential contribution and cost of efficiency and renewables, based on analyses by the Rand Corporation, McKinsey and Company, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

Clearly, there is huge potential for low carbon approaches to meet electricity needs. To put this potential into perspective, long-term targets call for emissions reductions below 2005 levels of slightly more than 40 percent by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050. Even assuming that all existing low carbon sources (about 30 percent of the current mix) have to be replaced by 2030, there is more than ample potential in the efficiency and renewables.

With continuing demand growth, it would still not be until 2040 that costly or as yet nonexistent technologies would be needed. Thus, pursuing these low cost options first meets the need for electricity and emissions reductions, while allowing time for technologies to be developed, such as electricity storage or carbon capture, that could meet electricity needs after 2040. The contending technologies that would have to be included in the long term are all shown with equal costs, above the technologies that have lower costs because it is difficult to project costs that far out in future and there will likely be a great deal of technological change before those technologies must be tapped to add substantial incremental supplies.
http://www.olino.org/us/articles/2009/11/26/the-economics-of-nuclear-reactors-renaissance-or-relapse

And you think you are qualified to critique Jacobson?

Really?

[Confusious]

10. HA! I think anyone ( except you ) is qualified

Putting things into a analysis that even a high school freshmen would not disqualifies him as a source.


Boy, the closed mind ( right wing )
Ignore facts you don't like. ( right wing )
You're either with us or against us ( sarah palin likes nuclear )
now, the appeal to authority.

You're looking a little right wing there

[NNadir]

11. Unless, of course, one contemplates whether 160% of next to zero is next to zero.

Anyone who thinks wind can save us, and is cheering for this business is probably oblivious.

Wind has failed for decades to keep up with the growth in dangerous natural gas burning, and from the sounds of this, will continue to do as awfully.

That's why anyone who believes, as I do, that dangerous fossil fuels should not be greenwashed, but should be phased out, thinks of wind energy as a silly and expensive toy that is useless in the serious fight against climate change.

[Nathanael]

12. Wind is Part of the Answer

Fossil fuels do need to be phased out, but wind is part of the answer. For the past two years wind power has been the largest growing energy source in Europe, which means that the multiple countries have been duped into putting money behind a frivolous toy, as you put it.