China is the only market ranked as “booming” for wind energy growth in a new report from Navigant Research.
The report, Global Wind Energy Policy Update, analyses wind energy development policies in 42 countries, based current policy stability, past performance, sector potential and economic forecasts.
Navigant Research senior research analyst Roberto Rodriguez Labastida said: “Perhaps the most important insight from this analysis is a move toward lower but stable growth rates.
“While the mix of countries seeking to grow wind capacity continues to expand, today, only China is ranked by Navigant Research as Booming, while the US, India, and Germany are categorized as outperformers, and 21 and 17 countries, respectively, are classified as growing or stalled.”
The report added that increased depth of the global wind energy market is expected to provide the industry some stability, as it will be less dependent on the policy of individual countries.
However, resulting market fragmentation means that manufacturers and developers must be flexible, adapting their skills to work in different environments, in order to thrive.
As the cost of wind energy plunges due to technological improvements and efficiencies of scale, many governments are exploring market-oriented policy options that decrease costs for supporting governments, ratepayers, and other stakeholders, Navigant said.
Within this changing environment, wind growth in some of the countries with the most installed wind power capacity has stalled while others are warming up for further expansion, the company added.
Image: the Liu’ao wind farm in China (Suzlon)
