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Almost the same level of wind capacity – 46,503MW – has been added in the past three years as was added in the twenty years previously. Average annual capacity growth since 1980 has been over 40%. While European growth slows, the US and emerging markets such as India and China are investing heavily in wind power.

The Future of Wind Power is a management report utilizing over 35 sources to analyze how wind power technologies are maturing and evolving and their impact on the electricity generation landscape. This report examines how technological developments, government renewable targets and capacity additions are having a massive impact on the economics and uptake of wind power. It also looks at some of the environmental and regulatory aspects acting as both drivers and resistors of wind power generation growth.

Understand the key drivers and resistors of wind power capacity growth and its impact on the power generation landscape with the help of this new report.

Some key findings from this report:

• Wind accounted for 35% of all new capacity additions in the US and 40% of new capacity in Europe in 2007. Wind generating capacity in China grew by 127% in 2007 compared to 2006.

• Estimates vary widely in terms of global wind resource between 72,000GW and 1,000,000GW. In both cases the total potential is much greater than current global demand for electricity.

• Turbines installed in 2005 generate over 40 times more power than those installed in 1984. Replacing older turbines with larger modern ones (repowering) will be a key feature in capacity growth.

• The cost of integrating wind power is a major issue. Estimates average at $10/MWh, dependent on availability of hydropower for energy storage and levels of wind power penetration.

• Wind power is highly competitive with nuclear, supercritical coal and gas turbine power plants even without tax credits, based on recent levelized cost comparisons.

This new report will enable you to:

• Benchmark the competitiveness of wind power against traditional technologies with this report’s comparison of wind power generation cost and analysis of the impact of tax credits.

• Predict future wind power growth in Europe, the US and key developing economies and understand the role wind power will play in meeting renewable energy targets using this report’s wind power generation forecasts for Europe, the US and China.

• Discover the effects of technological changes on wind power with this report’s examination of changes in efficiency, reliability and costs as wind power technology matures.

• Understand the key issues, drivers and resistors of wind power including the grid integration of higher levels of wind power as penetration increases.

• Assess the environmental impact of wind power with this report’s assessment of the key environmental issues including an analysis of lifecycle emissions.

Key issues examined by this report
• Emerging markets. After Europe led initial uptake, markets such as China and Asia are now increasingly driving up renewable investment, creating a new, high growth wind power generation.

• Grid integration. The higher penetrations of wind power demanded by government renewable energy targets will require significant investment in energy storage. Operators are not yet ready to put these changes into place.

• The cost of wind power. Wind power generation is already competitive with gas, coal and nuclear and energy based on levelized costs from California. However, capital costs for wind energy are now rising again.

• Repowering. Replacing older turbines with modern ones is increasingly being used to add capacity without creating a much larger environmental footprint.



Pages: 128
Publication Date: October 2008
Publisher: Business Insights