Vestas dominated turbine installations in 2018, accounting for one in every five, according to the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC) new market intelligence report.
The first edition of GWEC’s annual ‘Global Wind Market Development – Supply Side Data 2018′ report found that 20,641 wind turbines were installed in 2018, with a combined capacity of 50.6GW.
After Vestas, Goldwind and Siemens Gamesa came next in terms of market share, in a global market comprising 37 turbine manufacturers in total.
According to GWEC’s analysis Vestas held the title as the world’s largest turbine supplier last year, due to its wide geographic diversification strategy and strong performance in the Americas.
“Goldwind moved up one position to second place after its domestic market share increased by 5.1% in 2018. Siemens Gamesa fell one position to third place, primarily due to lower installation levels in the UK, Germany and India in 2018,” according to the report.
The study, produced by GWEC’s new market intelligence platform, also found that over half of the top 15 wind turbine manufacturers are based in China.
GWEC chief executive Ben Backwell said: “The fact that tier one suppliers gained greater market share in a year when the new installation declined by 3% reinforces that leading global suppliers’ hard work, focusing on product innovation and value-added solutions, has finally paid off.
“While there are eight Chinese manufacturers included in the top 15, the picture changes dramatically when sales in the domestic Chinese market are excluded. Aside from Goldwind, none of the Chinese suppliers installed sufficient new wind capacity in the overseas market for any to be included in the top 10 ranking in 2018.”
GE retained fourth place by taking advantage of “stronger performance in the US market, where it recaptured the title as the number one supplier, said the report.
Envision replaced Enercon in fifth place, mainly due to its strong growth in China and the sharp drop of installations in Enercon’s domestic German market in 2018.
Chinese suppliers Mingyang, United Power and Sewind moved up to seventh, ninth and tenth respectively, which can be largely attributed to stable performances in their home markets.
Suzlon dropped out of the top 10 turbine supplier ranking in 2018, primarily a result of reduced installations, by up to one third, in its home market of India, found the study.
Senvion fell three positions to number 12 with new installations in Germany in 2018 halving compared to the previous year, while Chinese suppliers CSIC Haizhuang and XEMC remained in the top 15, though they both lost market share in 2018.
GWEC’s analysis also suggests that geared wind turbine systems remain the preferred choice of wind turbine technology.
The market share of conventional high-speed geared systems and medium speed turbines increased to 69.7% and 3.7% respectively in 2018.
According to the report the market share of direct drive wind turbine dropped nearly 2% to 26.6% in 2018, mainly due to the reduction of wind turbines installed by Germany’s Enercon in 2018.
The number one suppliers in each of the three technology categories of high-speed geared drive, medium speed geared drive and direct drive in 2018 were Vestas, Mingyang and Goldwind respectively, said GWEC.