World Wind Energy Report 2009
Executive Summary 

• Worldwide capacity reached 159’213 MW, out of which 38'312 MW were added in 2009.
  
• Wind power showed a growth rate of 31,7 %, the highest rate since 2001.
  
• The trend continued that wind capacity doubles every three years.
  
• All wind turbines installed by the end of 2009 worldwide are generating 340 TWh per annum, equivalent to the total electricity demand of Italy, the seventh largest economy of the world, and equalling 2 % of global electricity consumption.
  
• The wind sector in 2009 had a turnover of 50 billion €.
  
• The wind sector employed 550’000 persons worldwide. In the year 2012, the wind industry is expected for the first time to offer 1 million jobs.
  
• China continued its role as the locomotive of the international wind industry and added 13’800 MW within one year – as the biggest market for new turbines –, more than doubling the installations for the fourth year in a row. 
• The USA maintained its number one position in terms of total installed capacity and China became number two in total capacity, only slightly ahead of Germany, both of them with around 26’000 Megawatt of wind capacity installed. 
• Asia accounted for the largest share of new installations (40,4 %), followed by North America (28,4 %) and Europe fell back to the third place (27,3 %).
  
• Latin America showed encouraging growth and more than doubled its installations, mainly due to Brazil and Mexico.
  
• A total wind capacity of 200’000 Megawatt will be exceeded within the year 2010.
  
• Based on accelerated development and further improved policies, WWEA increases its predictions and sees a global capacity of 1’900’000 Megawatt as possible by the year 2020.

Download pdf version of World Wind Energy Report 2009 in English 2.28 Mb, in Chinese 1.18 Mb, in French 2.08 Mb, in Russian 1.38 Mb, in Spanish 1.28 Mb (soon also in German)

General situation:
Global Wind Capacity continues to double every third year

Again the year 2009 brought new records for wind energy utilisation around the world: In spite of the global economic crisis, investment in new wind turbines exceeded by far all previous years.

The wind capacity worldwide reached 159’213 Megawatt, after 120’903 MW in 2008, 93’930 MW in 2007, 74’123 MW in 2006, and 59’012 MW in 2005.

Again it can be seen that the installed wind capacity is more than doubling every third year.

The market for new wind turbines showed a 42,1 % increase and reached an overall size of 38’312 MW, after 26’969 MW in 2008, 19’808 MW in 2007 and 15’111 MW in the year 2006. Ten years ago, the market for new wind turbines had only a size of 4 Gigawatt, only one tenth of the size of 2009.

In comparison, according to the Interna-tional Atomic Energy Agency the share of nuclear power in the global energy supply went again down in the year 2009 and the number of nuclear power stations worldwide decreased by one.

The turnover of the wind sector worldwide reached 50 billion € / 70 billion US$ in the year 2009, compared with 40 billion € in the previous year.

Wind energy and the global financial crisis: Better policies

The global financial and economic crisis, all in all, had no negative impact on the general development of the wind sector worldwide. Many governments sent clear signals that they want to accelerate wind deployment in their countries and indicated that investment in wind and other renewable technologies is seen as the answer to the financial as well as to the still ongoing energy crisis.

Hence, politically stable and in many cases improved frameworks lead to more investment in wind utilisation around the globe.

Two milestones in this context were the first feed-in law in North America, adopted in Ontario, in the aftermath of the WWEC2008, and the introduction of the first feed-in tariff in Africa by the National Energy Regulator of South Africa.

Within this political environment and as predicted in the World Wind Energy Report 2008, the finance sector has started to understand that wind technology is in principle a low-risk investment not only for the investors themselves, given the right policies are in place.

In addition to such direct microeconomic benefits for wind investors, wind turbines stabilise the overall energy prices and hence reduce general economic risks in a country, while reducing the dependency on (in most cases imported) fossil and nuclear resources.

Interesting prospects for financing wind and other renewable technologies came up in the context of the UN climate change discussions: The International Renewable Energy Alliance proposed at the COP15 in Copenhagen a Global Fund for Renewable Energy Investment, including a Global Feed-in Tariff programme. This proposal would enable mainly developing countries to invest on a large scale in renewable energy and has already attracted major interest amongst governments and international organisations. Adopted in the frame of the UNFCCC, it would pave the way for an accelerated huge and worldwide boom of renewable energy deployment.