The rush to wind continues apace, as global installed capacity of wind turbines reached 74 GW by the end of 2006, after additions of 14,985 MW during the year. It has been forecast that installed capacity of wind power will double to 142 GW by 2010 and will grow further. The last year has seen some changes in the national rankings in terms of wind power. Sudden activity has pushed some markets forward while other countries slow down as the wind market matures. The five big markets remain the leaders, Germany, Spain, the USA, India and Denmark, and China is about to join the top table.The report provides installed capacity for all countries at the end of 2006 and in many cases until mid-2007. It also details issues raised by the operators, such as capacity factors and credit capacity, intermittency or variability, mis-match of supply and demand, the difficulty of balancing the grid, the need for grid extension and the requirement for back–up capacity. The report provides a comprehensive survey of feed-in tariffs and RPS (Renewable Porfolio Standard) incentives, listing practices by country for 43 countries.The major wind developers are listed and the leading turbine manufacturers are profiled.

Key Findings

* An important factor to emerge is the variation of conditions from country to country, which means that what may be a serious problem in one country is not significant in another.

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Significant industry issues have emerged as operational data becomes available from the major wind power operators such as E.ON Netz, Eltra, ESB. This has opened many questions about the assumptions and claims made for wind power. The report details these and evaluates them, discussing solutions and pitfalls.


* The initial response from much of the wind industry was denial and the labelling of many of these reports as ‘myths’ despite their origin from such experienced and authoritative sources. The industry is now settling into a more mature phase and there is more open discussion of solutions to the problems, and many of these solutions are being implemented constructively.