Many renewable energy technologies, most notably photovoltaic, are struggling to reach what's called "grid parity," where the cost of the power they generate matches that of fossil fuel generation. One technology that's largely there is wind, as maturing turbine technology and economies of scale have made the economics of wind power quite competitive. Those economics can clearly be seen in the latest figures on the growth of the wind industry, which cover 2008. Among the milestones: wind was the largest component of Europe's growth in electric generating capacity, the US became the world's top wind energy producer, and China doubled its installed capacity in just a year—for the fourth year running.

In total, the global installed capacity for wind energy went up nearly 30 percent last year, reaching 121GW. The 27GW installed represent an increase in total installations of 36 percent compared to the figures from 2007. The Global Wind Energy Council estimates that the market for new facilities alone is nearly $50 billion dollars.

With growth like that, there is a lot of good news to go around. Europe accounted for 8.9GW of the global growth, which made wind the leading source of new grid capacity (in the US, it came in at 42 percent of new capacity). The GWEC says that, in contrast to years past, when growth was concentrated in Denmark, Germany, and Spain, it was more evenly distributed in 2008, with countries like France and the UK adding significant capacity.

Asia as a whole accounted for about a third of the added global capacity, but there was nothing like an even distribution there—China accounted for 6.3GW of new installation, which marks the fourth year in a row that the country has doubled its installed wind power capacity. With more projects already in the works and the government having chosen to build wind capacity as part of its response to the economic crisis, the country is set for a repeat performance in 2009, which would take it past traditional wind users like Spain and Germany to second place in the global market.

It would be taking second place behind the US, which took the top spot after increasing its capacity by 50 percent in 2008, building 8.4GW of new facilities. The pace of growth had been picking up, as nearly half that figure came online during the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, the US affiliate of the GWEC, the American Wind Energy Council, says that orders have tailed off due to the credit crunch, and turbine manufacturers are beginning to cut jobs. That's bad news for one of the economy's bright spots—the AWEC estimates that wind energy jobs grew 70 percent last year.

As is happening globally, on the state level, the traditional users of wind power are being passed by some of the newer converts. California, with its famed Altamont Pass Wind Farm looking increasingly quaint compared to more recent facilities, has seen Iowa push it into third in terms of total installed capacity. Both are dwarfed by Texas' 7+ GW of capacity, which is more than the next three states combined. With facilities that are in the works, all of the top-10 states should exceed a Gigawatt shortly; that list includes New York, indicating that this growth isn't limited to the western two-thirds of the US.

Like most energy projects, wind power facilities are capital intensive, and capital is hard to come by in the US these days, so the report is accompanied by hopes that the US stimulus package will include provisions to expand wind energy even further, which should limit the job losses in manufacturing and prevent them from spreading downstream to construction and maintenance. The AWEA's CEO, Denise Bode, stated, "The hope is that provisions such as those included in the House stimulus bill to restore the effectiveness of the tax incentives for renewable energy will quickly become law and provide the capital needed to continue to build projects."