Wind power is taking off in 2021 according to GWEC forecasts

According to the forecasts of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), installations of new wind farms globally are expected to double in 2021, after slowing in the months of the pandemic. The research revealed that the world’s wind power capacity grew by 6.1 gigawatts last year, thus falling just short of the record 6.24 GW in 2019. GWEC forecasts indicate that global demand will increase by around 12 GW in 2021, mainly due to growth in offshore wind farms driven by China. This Asian country is dominating the wind installation sector for the third year in a row by installing another 7.5 GW offshore before government subsidies expire at the end of the year.

These are very high numbers, but still not in line with those required by the energy transition towards the global warming target agreed in Paris in 2015. GWEC director Ben Backwell said offshore continued to “break records, reduce prices and innovate” as well as generating new socio-economic benefits. “As the G20 summit has acknowledged time and time again, we are in a climate emergency and we can no longer be content with breaking records, however, the growth we need to achieve in the future is beyond anything we have seen so far,” Backwell added.