Wind’s future is looking more turbulent than ever

IN THE wind power industry, it is the best of times, and the worst of times.

Across major economies, accelerated energy transition plans are turbocharging the technology. In the US, wind generation will roughly double to duke it out with gas as America’s top generation source by 2030, the Energy Information Administration wrote recently. The Biden administration wants to see 30 GW of offshore wind by that date. Europe wants to have more than twice that level in the North Sea by then, too, while China may install three times the amount. 

Pushed by climate change and the sharper energy security concerns following the invasion of Ukraine, the sector has been propelled “into an extraordinary new phase of ever faster growth”, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) a trade body, wrote in its annual review of the industry on Mar 27.