Windy Times Around the Globe
Wind Power Initiatives Continue Global Surge in Renewable Energy
Oct 19, 2009
Wind energy has clearly become a key component of several countries’ current and future energy plans. So far this year, global leaders of installed wind energy capacity include the U.S. at 25,000 MW, Germany at 23,900 MW, and Spain at 16,700 MW. Spain had only 1,000 MW of installed wind energy capacity in 2000, and is now on track for 20,000 MW of installed wind energy capacity by 2010. Denmark currently gets almost 20% of its electricity from wind energy and even small countries such as Portugal and the Netherlands have more installed wind energy capacity than Canada.
Wind energy is the fastest growing source of energy in the world. Since 1990, wind energy has increased at an average rate of 25 percent per year, a trend driven largely by dramatic improvements in wind power technology.
Wind power is not a new source of energy. In fact, one of the first wind power projects was in California in the early 1980s, where wind farms started sprouting their wings near Oakland and Palm Springs. For years, this source of energy was not much of a bargain; it was cost-prohibitive for anything other than experimentation.
Wind Energy Growth Rate
However, over the past 10 years, global wind energy capacity has continued to grow at an average cumulative rate of more than 25 per cent. Global investment in wind energy is projected to total more than $1 trillion (US) by 2020, bringing global installed capacity to more than 600,000 MW.
Canada now ranks 12th in the world in terms of installed wind energy capacity and percentage of electricity generated from wind. Wind currently supplies about one per cent of Canada’s electricity demand with enough power to meet the needs of 860,000 homes. By year’s end, Canada will have 3,159 MW of installed capacity – with wind developments operating in in every province for the first time ever.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association's (CanWEA) vision document, Wind Vision 2025 – Powering Canada’s Future, estimates that wind energy has the potential to be one of Canada’s next great economic opportunities while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing other environmental concerns.
Decreasing Cost of Wind Power
Technology has been the key to reducing the cost of wind power and has brought the cost of wind turbine production and installation down. The cost to produce a kilowatt of electrical energy depends on several factors, related to consistency of wind speed and availability, as well as overall installation coats, and will vary from site to site. Three factors affect the cost per kw-hour: wind quality (speed and consistency), size of the facility and distance from the electrical power grid. The cost of generating electricity from wind has fallen dramatically over the past decade. With every doubling in global wind energy capacity, it is estimated that the cost of wind generated electricity fell by 15 per cent.
Wind energy is competitive with new coal and new nuclear capacity, even before any environmental costs of fossil fuel and nuclear generation are taken into account. As gas prices increase and wind power costs fall - both of which are very likely - wind becomes even more competitive, so much so that some time after 2010 wind should challenge gas as the lowest cost power source.
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