A new report from energy think tank Ember finds that national targets by governments add up to just over a doubling of the global wind capacity by 2030, but fall short of tripling.
The current sum of 2030 national wind targets is 2157GW, a 2.4 increase from 901GW capacity recorded in 2022.
Reaching a global tripling of wind would require an additional 585GW of capacity.
“Governments are lacking ambition on wind, and especially onshore wind,” said Katye Altieri, electricity analyst at Ember.
“Amidst the hype of solar, wind is not getting enough attention, even though it provides cheap electricity and complements solar.”
At the UN’s COP28 climate change conference in December, countries reached an agreement to triple global renewables capacity by 2030.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) declared this action as the ‘single most important lever’ to cut emissions this decade and keep the 1.5C goal within reach. According to the IEA, to meet the tripling renewables capacity goal, wind capacity should also at least triple.
The report analysed 2030 national wind targets in 70 countries plus the EU, which collectively represent 99% of current global wind capacity.
The analysis suggests that global wind capacity will double and that is mostly because China is expected to over-deliver and the rest of the world in aggregate is on course to under-deliver.
The latest industry forecasts suggest that China is set to triple wind capacity by 2030, and it will continue to account for over half of global wind additions every year from 2024 to 2030.
The report suggests that the US and India have a large gap between forecast installations and what is needed to meet their current 2030 targets.
The US does not have an explicit target, but modelling suggests that wind will increase by 2.6 times from 142GW in 2022 to 369GW in 2030.
Achieving this requires building 32GW of wind annually from 2024 to 2030.
However, the current build-rate is very low – just 6.4GW of wind was added in 2023.
India is targeting to build 509GW of renewables by 2030 including 110GW of wind.
Achieving this requires building 9.3GW of wind capacity annually from 2024 to 2030.
Annual wind installations in the country have risen over the past three years but the current build rate of 2.8GW in 2023 is well below what is needed.
Ben Backwell, CEO, GWEC, said, “Wind energy must be at the heart of the energy transition, every gigawatt installed is another step towards a confident green world.
“Targets play a key role in setting out a direction of travel, but the only thing that truly fights climate change, delivers clean industry, and provides secure energy is genuine action that delivers on those targets.”