The Global Wind Energy Council has recently released the latest figures for the year 2009. The council represents companies involved in wind power all around the world, including those that create wind turbines to those who run power stations. 2009 proved to be a good year all around for the wind energy division.
Overall, wind energy capacity grew 31 percent globally in the year 2009. Despite the economy impacting business sectors throughout the world, new turbines still created $69 billion in business in 2009. In total, the world ended the year of 2009 with 158 gigawatts in capacity from wind.
Surprisingly, the United States is the top user of wind energy, however only two percent of electricity needs actually comes from the source. In China, one percent of electricity needs comes from wind energy. However, China did double their wind energy capacity in the year 2009 from 12 to 25 gigawatts.
China, however, does have lofty goals in terms of wind energy by the year 2020. China plans on increasing their current gigawatts of wind energy capacity to 150 gigawatts by 2020. But, Chinese officials have noted that they will most likely meet this goal much earlier than previously expected.
Wind energy growth is being attributed to governments investing more into the renewable energy, particularly in economic stimulus packages. The secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, Steve Sawyer, stated: “Wind power is now often the most attractive option for new power generation, both in economic and environmental terms, and for improved supply security.”
Overall, the world’s installments of wind energy have reportedly prevented 204 million tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.