Global wind market to return to rapid growth after flat 2018 - GWEC

April 25 (Renewables Now) - The global wind market is not expected to experience any significant expansion between 2017 and 2018 but will return to "dramatic" growth in 2019, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said today as it released its annual market update.

According to GWEC, wind will cross the 60-GW annual deployments mark in 2020 and grow further from there to reach a total of 840 GW by 2022.

"We have a booming new market in Argentina, a return to form in South Africa, Mexico on the verge of dramatic growth, and a powerhouse building in India," said GWEC secretary general Steve Sawyer. "We see huge potential just beginning to be realised in Russia, Vietnam and even Saudi Arabia; and offshore is spreading like wildfire across the globe due to Europe’s patient, pioneering efforts to bring the technology to cost-competitiveness," Sawyer added.

GWEC released 2017 statistics in February. Its latest figures show the global wind industry added 52.5 GW of wind turbine capacity last year, a fall of 3.2%. That brought total installations globally to around 539 GW.

The organisation's five-year forecast sees the market at 52.9 GW in 2018, 57.5 GW in 2019, 62.4 GW in 2020, 62.6 GW in 2021 and 66.5 GW in 2022.

The projection for a flat market in 2018 reflects changing regulatory environments in the leading European markets of Germany and the UK, and a temporarily drop in India due to a "policy gap" between the old and new regimes.

GWEC expects the US market to remain strong at least through 2020 and probably after that. China will continue to be the dominant market globally, but will experience more lacklustre growth than in the past decade, while new markets continue to emerge in Africa and Asia, GWEC said. In Latin America, Brazil will remain the leading power with a new challenger from Argentina.