Vestas held the title as the world’s largest supplier of wind turbines in 2020 across onshore and offshore wind, according to preliminary rankings released by GWEC Market Intelligence.
The Danish manufacturer retained the top place, due to its “wide geographic diversification strategy”, with new installations in 32 markets last year, and “strong performance” in the US, Australia, Brazil, Netherland, France, Poland, Russia and Norway, GWEC stated.
In 2020 GE Renewable Energy moved up two positions to the second place, mainly due to the “explosive growth” in its home market of the US and its strong position in Spain in 2020.
Despite disruption cause by Covid-19 to local supply chains and project execution in the US, the GE reported more than 10GW of installations at home last year, making it the number one supplier in the US the second year in a row.
Chinese supplier Goldwind retained third position in 2020 and achieved a record year in its home market with more than 12GW installations, while new installations in overseas markets passed the 1GW milestone for the first time, highlighted GWEC.
The analysis found that Goldwind still held the top spot in China last year, but the supplier lost market share at home due to strong competition from tier two local suppliers.
Chinese Envision ranked fourth in 2020, moving up from the fifth position in 2019, by “taking advantage of strong market growth” in its home market, where more than 10GW was installed by the company in a single year, a record for Envision.
Siemens Gamesa had installations in 31 markets last year, but fell three positions to fifth place.
The company reported 8.7GW of new installations in 2020, 1.2GW lower than the previous year, primarily due to a relatively slow year of offshore wind in Europe.
Siemens Gamesa continued to retain its title as the world’s largest offshore wind turbine supplier in 2020.
The rankings will be published in the Global Wind Market Development ― Supply Side Data 2020, which will be released in late April 2021.
Preliminary results are subject to change between now and the release date of the actual report, said GWEC.
GWEC strategy and market intelligence head Feng Zhao said: “Our preliminary findings from the supply side confirm that 2020 was an incredible year for the wind industry.
“Chinese and American turbine manufacturers had a record of new installations that saw most of them moving up in global turbine OEM market rankings.
“This makes sense as it reflects the situation that the world’s two largest markets China and United States had the lion’s share in global wind installation in 2020.”