Wind Energy Industry Brought Surprises in 2008

2008 turned out to be a year of surprises in the wind energy industry. Global wind energy installed capacity was 94 GW by the end of 2007 and was estimated that it would reach 120 GW by the end of 2008. It has been doubling every three years during the last decade. The extraordinary growth in 2008 was due to unexpected increases (estimated) of 7 GW in China and 7.5 GW in the USA. It was not unexpected that these two countries did well but the scale of their growth was surprising. These two surges altered the global distribution of wind power, taking the US from 17.9% in 2007 to 20.2% in 2008 and China from 6.3% to 10.7%.

Global growth had slowed to 24% in 2006 but rose to 28% in 2007 and remained at that level in 2008.

The annual global wind market value in 2007 totalled €25 billion ($37 billion), an increase of 39% on €18 billion ($23 billion) in 2006 (in current values). Prices rose from $1.03 million per megawatt in 2005 to $1.21 million in 2006 and $1.26 million in 2007. The price rise was driven partly by the increase in demand but also by the increase in the price of raw materials, especially cold steel, which rose by 58% between 2005 and late 2008.

A Snapshot of Ocean Technology in 2009

Today, more than 25 countries are involved in developing relevant conversion technologies for harnessing ocean renewable resources for electricity generation and/or other purposes, such as desalination, heating for aquaculture and other uses.

Over 300 wave and tidal devices have been suggested up to the present time, but very few of these are in an advanced state of development. One technology, Pelamis, is leading in terms of development with a medium sized grid-connected scheme being installed in Portuguese waters now.

Ocean energy is mostly in an experimental stage and apart from the 40 year old tidal barrage at La Rance in France, the first ocean energy projects are now being installed and about to be commercialised.

The market is poised for expansion and is expected to grow to 1 GW of installed capacity at an annual market size of $500 million by 2015, but these figures are very broad. Investment to date in the ocean power market has been just over $500 million since 2001, which is relatively small compared to other renewable energy market segments. More than $2 billion will be invested to build commercial ocean wave power farms by 2015. Another $2 billion will go towards research and development globally over the next six years.