Global Wind Power

The modern wind power industry began in 1979 with the serial production of wind turbines by Danish manufacturers Kuriant, Vestas, Nordtank, and Bonus. These early turbines were small by today's standards, with capacities of 20 to 30 kW each. Since then, they have increased greatly in size, while wind turbine production has expanded to many countries all over the world.

There are now many thousands of wind turbines operating, with a total nameplate capacity of 121,188 MW of which wind power in Europe accounts for 55% (2008). World wind generation capacity more than quadrupled between 2000 and 2006, doubling about every three years. By comparison, photovoltaic has been doubling about every two years (48%/year), although from a smaller base (15,200 MW in 2008).81% of wind power installations are in the US and Europe. The share of the top five countries in terms of new installations fell from 71% in 2004 to 62% in 2006, but climbed to 73% by 2008 as those countries -- the United States, Germany, Spain, China, and India -- have seen substantial capacity growth in the past two years (see chart).

By 2010, the World Wind Energy Association expects 160GW of capacity to be installed worldwide up from 73.9 GW at the end of 2006, implying an anticipated net growth rate of more than 21% per year.

Wind Turbine Global Capacities

#	Nation	2005	2006	2007	2008[1]
1	United States	9,149	11,603	16,818	25,170
2	Germany	18,415	20,622	22,247	23,903
3	Spain	10,028	11,615	15,145	16,740
4	China	1,260	2,604	6,050	12,210
5	India	4,430	6,270	8,000	9,587
6	Italy	1,718	2,123	2,726	3,736
7	France	757	1,567	2,454	3,404
8	United Kingdom	1,332	1,963	2,389	3,288
9	Denmark (& Faeroe Islands)	3,136	3,140	3,129	3,160
10	Portugal	1,022	1,716	2,150	2,862
11	Canada	683	1,459	1,856	2,369
12	Netherlands	1,219	1,560	1,747	2,225
13	Japan	1,061	1,394	1,538	1,880
14	Australia	708	817	824	1,494
15	Sweden	510	572	788	1,067
16	Ireland	496	745	805	1,245
17	Austria	819	965	982	995
18	Greece	573	746	871	990
19	Poland	83	153	276	472
20	Turkey	20	51	146	333
21	Norway	267	314	333	428
22	Belgium	167	193	287	384
23	Egypt	145	230	310	390
24	Taiwan	104	188	282	358
25	Brazil	29	237	247	338
26	New Zealand	169	171	322	325
27	South Korea	98	173	191	278
28	Bulgaria	6	20	35	158
29	Czech Republic	28	50	116	150
30	Finland	82	86	110	140
31	Morocco	64	124	114	125
32	Hungary	18	61	65	127
33	Ukraine	77	86	89	90
34	Mexico	3	88	87	85
35	Iran	23	48	66	82
36	Costa Rica	71	74	74	74
	Rest of Europe	129	163
	Rest of Americas	109	109
	Rest of Asia	38	38
	Rest of Africa & Middle East	31	31
	Rest of Oceania	12	12
	World total (MW)	59,091	74,223	93,849	121,188