WORLD WIND STILL GROWING

World wind capacity increases by 6%
James Quilter, 07 February 2012 (Windpower Monthly)

"The world's wind energy capacity increased by 41GW in 2011, a 21% increase on 2010's rise, according to figures from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

"Overall global capacity has increased by 6%. The largest addition came from China, which installed an additional 18GW and almost three times as much as the US with 6,810MW. China took its capacity to over 62GW with the US on 47GW…"

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"Other big increases came from India, adding 3GW to go to 16GW, and Germany, adding 2GW to go to 29GW…Germany was also the major developer in Europe, with Spain and the UK adding 1GW and 1.2GW respectively. Overall Europe installed 10GW to take its total to 96.6GW.

"Although the figures show wind capacity continues to grow, rate of growth has slowed…[In 2010] capacity increased by 35.8GW a rise of 22.5%...In emerging markets, Brazil and Mexico continued to add capacity with 583MW (to 1.5GW) and 354MW (873MW) respectively. Both were increases on last year's figures…"