PR88622

BRUSSELS, March 25 /PRNewswire=KYODO JBN/ --

2020 was a record year for the global wind power industry, but a new report

published by GWEC warns that the world needs to install new wind power capacity

three times faster over the next decade to achieve global climate targets.

2020 was the best year in history for the global wind industry with 93 GW of

new capacity installed – a 53 per cent year-on-year increase - but a new report

published by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) warns that this growth is

not sufficient to ensure the world achieves net zero by 2050. According to the

Global Wind Report 2021, GWEC’s 16th annual flagship report, the world needs to

be installing wind power three times faster over the next decade in order to

stay on a net zero pathway and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Through technology innovations and economies of scale, the global wind power

market has nearly quadrupled in size over the past decade and established

itself as one of the most cost-competitive and resilient power sources across

the world. In 2020, record growth was driven by a surge of installations in

China and the US – the world’s two largest wind power markets - who together

installed 75 per cent of the new installations in 2020 and account for over

half of the world’s total wind power capacity.

Today, there is now 743 GW of wind power capacity worldwide, helping to avoid

over 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 globally – equivalent to the annual carbon

emissions of South America.

Yet, as the clean energy technology with the most decarbonisation potential per

MW, the report shows that the current rate of wind power deployment will not be

enough to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of this century, and urgent

action must be taken by policymakers now to scale up wind power at the

necessary pace.

According to the scenarios that have been established by international energy

bodies such as IRENA and the IEA, the world needs to be installing a minimum of

180 GW of new wind energy every year to limit global warming to well below 2°C

above pre-industrial levels, and will need to install up to 280 GW annually to

maintain a pathway compliant with meeting net zero by 2050. This means that the

industry and policymakers need to work collaboratively and act fast to

accelerate deployment.

GWEC is calling on policymakers to take a true ‘climate emergency’ approach to

allow a faster ramp up including:

- Eliminating red tape and reforming administrative structures in order to

speed up and streamline licensing and permitting for projects

- Carry out a massive increase in investments in grid, ports and other

infrastructure needed to allow the ramp up in installations

- Re-vamp energy markets to ensure that they account for the true social costs

of polluting fossil fuels and facilitate a rapid transition to a system based

on renewable energy.

Ben Backwell, CEO at GWEC said: “People and governments around the world are

realising that we have a limited window to head off dangerous climate change.

While many major economies have announced long-term net zero targets, we need

to make sure that urgent and meaningful actions are taken now to make sure this

ambition is matched with fast growing investment and installations of renewable

power on the ground and in the water. It is really encouraging to see record

growth in China and US last year, but now we need the rest of the world to step

up to get us where we need to be.”

"Our current market forecasts show that 469 GW of new wind power capacity will

be installed over the next five years. But we need to be installing at least

180 GW of new capacity every year through 2025 to ensure we remain on the right

path to limit global warming well below 2°C - meaning we are currently on-track

to be 86 GW short on average each year. And these installation levels will need

to scale up to 280 GW beyond 2030 to deliver carbon neutrality by mid-century.

Every year we fall short, the mountain to climb in the years ahead gets

higher," he added.

Feng Zhao, Head of Market Intelligence and Strategy at GWEC commented: “The

wind industry must work together with governments, communities, as well as

other sectors such as solar, storage, and oil & gas to find solutions to

accelerate the energy transition as efficiently as possible. Wind power both

onshore and offshore, will play a crucial role in decarbonising not only

electrons, but also molecules by driving the commercialisation of

cost-competitive Power-to-X solutions. This will be a key element in achieving

net zero in harder to abate sectors such as heavy industry and long-distance

transport and enable the full decarbonisation of our society.”

“In every major institutional scenario for energy system transformation

analysed in this report, the wind market must rapidly expand over the next

decade. The wind industry must be clear that this growth will not happen

spontaneously, and urgent policy interventions are required worldwide.

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we saw how governments can quickly react to

address a global crisis – this same urgency must now be applied to the climate

crisis,” he added.

Contact:

Global Wind Energy Council,

Alyssa Pek

tel: +32 490 56 81 39

Source: Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC)