Global wind power development is rapidly moving towards full commercialization

According to the Global Wind Power report released by the Global Wind Energy Council recently, the global wind power installed capacity in 2017 was 52.492GW, and the cumulative installed capacity reached 539.123GW, an increase of 11% over the previous year. Among them, the new installed capacity of offshore wind power reached 4.334GW, an increase of 87%. The cumulative installed capacity of offshore wind power has reached 18.814GW, an increase of 30% year-on-year.

The report points out that wind power is developing rapidly globally and is becoming a fully commercial and subsidy-free energy source, able to compete with heavily subsidized fossil energy and nuclear energy in the market. Currently, the price of wind power in countries such as Morocco, India and Canada has dropped to $0.03 / KWH, and the price of wind power in Mexico has recently been put up for tender as low as $0.02 / KWH. It is worth mentioning that last year, the world's first "subsidy-free" offshore wind power project appeared in the German tender, the project installed capacity reached 1GW, the project electricity price is not higher than the wholesale price of the power market.

Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global Wind Energy Council, said wind power is one of the most price-competitive technologies in many markets around the world. With the emergence of wind and photovoltaic composite systems, as well as the continued popularity of more intelligent grid management systems and increasingly cheaper energy storage systems, the future vision of a fully commercial, fossil-free power system will become a reality.

The report shows that China continues to lead wind power development. Last year, although China's wind turbine growth has slowed down, the new installed capacity is still as high as 19.5GW, accounting for nearly 40% of the world. Wind turbines in India, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries are also growing significantly. In Europe, Germany added more than 6GW of new installations and countries such as the UK, France, Finland, Belgium, Ireland and Croatia all achieved record growth, with more than 3GW of offshore wind installed in Europe. In the Americas, the US market performed strongly, with 7.1GW of new capacity installed and an increasing number of companies signing power purchase agreements with wind and PV plants. Wind power growth in Canada and Mexico has been steady. Brazil led the Latin American market with a 2GW increase in installed capacity.