China leads global growth in wind power capacity

China has secured the top spot in the world’s rating of nations with most wind power facilities installed in 2020, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said in its latest report.

Last year, China launched a record 52 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity, doubling the nation’s annual installations against the previous year.

“The incredible and rapid growth of wind power in the region has been led by China, which now has more wind power capacity than Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America combined,” said Feng Zhao, head of market intelligence and strategy at GWEC.

According to the official, China’s “installation rush” was expected amid the phase out of the onshore wind feed-in tariff by the end of 2020.

“In order for China to achieve its goal of net zero by 2060, the country needs to be installing over 50GW of wind power capacity per year from 2021-2025, and 60GW from 2026 onwards,” he said, noting that the nation was to ensure that the level of growth could be sustained in a subsidy-free era.

In the Asia-Pacific region, China was followed by India, which installed 1,119 megawatts (MW), and Australia, with 1,097MW. Japan, Kazakhstan, and Sri Lanka reportedly installed 449MW, 300MW and 88MW of new wind power capacity.

As a whole, the region provided 56GW of new wind power facilities last year, marking a 78% surge compared to the previous year, according to a Brussels-based trade association. Nearly the same capacity was reportedly installed globally in 2019.

Asia-Pacific may currently boast wind power capacity of around 347GW, the highest in the world. Last year, installations in the regions accounted for more than 60% of all new global wind power capacity.

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