A new report by the Global Wind Energy Council and Greenpeace International says that wind energy could meet as much as one-fifth of global electricity demand by 2030.
The report predicts that installed capacity of wind energy will increase more than four times the 240 gigawatts of last year, up to as much as 1,100 gigawatts by 2020. This would supply between 11.7% and 12.6% of global electricity and save 1.7 billion tons of CO2 emissions.
According to Sven Teske, the senior energy expert of Greenpeace, the most important aspect of long-term wind energy success is “stable, long term policy†that sends a clear signal to investors about the government’s vision for its potential.
Based on projections from the International Energy Agency, the least ambitious scenario will involve a flat wind market through 2015, sinking to 10% below 2011 levels during the second half of this decade. On the optimistic side, a recovery in growth during the second half of the decade could result in as much capacity as 2,500GW by 2030.
If 20% doesn’t sound very encouraging to you, think of other clean energy sources as well – solar power, for one, is on track to providing far more than 20% of the global demand by 2030. When all of these sources are combined, it’s not a bad outlook for the future.
Image CC licensed by Andreas Klinke Johannsen: Offshore windfarm near Copenhagen.
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