The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) launched its Global Wind Report - Annual Market Update, updating the status of the global industry, along with market projections for the years 2014-2018. GWEC expects installations of at least 47GW in 2014, a dramatic increase over 2013 levels.
The market will be led by China, but with strong recovery in the US market, and record installations in Canada and Brazil; and hundreds of MW in South Africa.However, GWEC cautioned that without a strong global climate policy, market growth is unlikely to return to the 20-25% or more average growth which has characterised most of the last two decades. In the absence of a global price for carbon, or anything close to it, wind energy's other attributes come to the fore. Today in many markets its most compelling selling point is cost-competitiveness. Wind is already competing successfully against heavily subsidised incumbents in a growing number of markets around the world as the technology and its implementation steadily improve. Furthermore, recent events in Ukraine and elsewhere point to wind energy's contribution to energy security. GWEC's annual Global Wind Report gives a comprehensive snapshot of the global industry, now present in over 80 countries with 24 countries having more than 1,000MW installed. This year's edition includes insights of the most important wind power markets worldwide, future trends with projections for 2014-2018, a chapter featuring a renewable energy future and the state of play of the global offshore market.