World Wind Watch | Green Energy News

March 2, 2003 – Vol.7 No.49

WORLD WIND WATCH.

A bright note in a gloomy world - clean, greenhouse-gas-free wind power thrives. Look at these numbers. Wind generating capacity grew by 28 percent last year with an additional 6868 megawatts installed. That new capacity is worth $7.3 billion (6.8 billion euros).

World wind generating capacity now exceeds 31,000 megawatts, enough power for 7.5 million average American homes, or 16 million average European homes (Europeans are more frugal with their electricity than Americans.) Wind capacity worldwide has quadrupled in the past five years.

European nations added 5871 megawatts last year (a 33 percent increase to 23,056 megawatts. The U.S. added 410 megawatts (only a 10 percent increase because of the lack of a permanent, or at best, long term Production Tax Credit (PTC)). Germany has the largest wind generating capacity on the planet, Spain is number two. The U.S. has fallen behind to the number three spot followed by Denmark, then India.

And looking into the crystal ball? Building new global wind power could be worth $26.8 billion (25 billion euros) per year by 2010 if growth trends continue, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA). Not small change. Visit the AWEA at http://www.awea.org/ , the EWEA at http://www.ewea.org/ .

Another 60 megawatts will be added to global wind power statistics when the Scroby Sands offshore wind farm is complete by the fall of 2004. Located 3 kilometers offshore from the East Coast of England near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, the 30-turbine facility will be built by Powergen Renewables Offshore. Vestas will supply V-80 2.0 megawatt turbines for the project in an order worth $107 million (100 million euros) Visit Powergen at http://www.powergen.com/ (site under reconstruction), Vestas at http://www.vestas.com/