2020 was a record year for the global wind power industry, but a new report 
published by GWEC warns that the world needs to install new wind power capacity 
three times faster over the next decade to achieve global climate targets. 

2020 was the best year in history for the global wind industry with 93 GW of 
new capacity installed – a 53 per cent year-on-year increase - but a new report 
published by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) warns that this growth is 
not sufficient to ensure the world achieves net zero by 2050. According to the 
Global Wind Report 2021, GWEC’s 16th annual flagship report, the world needs to 
be installing wind power three times faster over the next decade in order to 
stay on a net zero pathway and avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Through technology innovations and economies of scale, the global wind power 
market has nearly quadrupled in size over the past decade and established 
itself as one of the most cost-competitive and resilient power sources across 
the world. In 2020, record growth was driven by a surge of installations in 
China and the US – the world’s two largest wind power markets - who together 
installed 75 per cent of the new installations in 2020 and account for over 
half of the world’s total wind power capacity.

Today, there is now 743 GW of wind power capacity worldwide, helping to avoid 
over 1.1 billion tonnes of CO2 globally – equivalent to the annual carbon 
emissions of South America.

Yet, as the clean energy technology with the most decarbonisation potential per 
MW, the report shows that the current rate of wind power deployment will not be 
enough to achieve carbon neutrality by the middle of this century, and urgent 
action must be taken by policymakers now to scale up wind power at the 
necessary pace. 

According to the scenarios that have been established by international energy 
bodies such as IRENA and the IEA, the world needs to be installing a minimum of 
180 GW of new wind energy every year to limit global warming to well below 2°C 
above pre-industrial levels, and will need to install up to 280 GW annually to 
maintain a pathway compliant with meeting net zero by 2050. This means that the 
industry and policymakers need to work collaboratively and act fast to 
accelerate deployment.

GWEC is calling on policymakers to take a true ‘climate emergency’ approach to 
allow a faster ramp up including:
- Eliminating red tape and reforming administrative structures in order to 
speed up and streamline licensing and permitting for projects
- Carry out a massive increase in investments in grid, ports and other 
infrastructure needed to allow the ramp up in installations
- Re-vamp energy markets to ensure that they account for the true social costs 
of polluting fossil fuels and facilitate a rapid transition to a system based 
on renewable energy.

Ben Backwell, CEO at GWEC said: “People and governments around the world are 
realising that we have a limited window to head off dangerous climate change. 
While many major economies have announced long-term net zero targets, we need 
to make sure that urgent and meaningful actions are taken now to make sure this 
ambition is matched with fast growing investment and installations of renewable 
power on the ground and in the water. It is really encouraging to see record 
growth in China and US last year, but now we need the rest of the world to step 
up to get us where we need to be.”

"Our current market forecasts show that 469 GW of new wind power capacity will 
be installed over the next five years. But we need to be installing at least 
180 GW of new capacity every year through 2025 to ensure we remain on the right 
path to limit global warming well below 2°C - meaning we are currently on-track 
to be 86 GW short on average each year. And these installation levels will need 
to scale up to 280 GW beyond 2030 to deliver carbon neutrality by mid-century. 
Every year we fall short, the mountain to climb in the years ahead gets 
higher," he added.

Feng Zhao, Head of Market Intelligence and Strategy at GWEC commented: “The 
wind industry must work together with governments, communities, as well as 
other sectors such as solar, storage, and oil & gas to find solutions to 
accelerate the energy transition as efficiently as possible. Wind power both 
onshore and offshore, will play a crucial role in decarbonising not only 
electrons, but also molecules by driving the commercialisation of 
cost-competitive Power-to-X solutions. This will be a key element in achieving 
net zero in harder to abate sectors such as heavy industry and long-distance 
transport and enable the full decarbonisation of our society.”

“In every major institutional scenario for energy system transformation 
analysed in this report, the wind market must rapidly expand over the next 
decade. The wind industry must be clear that this growth will not happen 
spontaneously, and urgent policy interventions are required worldwide. 
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we saw how governments can quickly react to 
address a global crisis – this same urgency must now be applied to the climate 
crisis,” he added.

Contact:
Global Wind Energy Council, 
Alyssa Pek 
tel: +32 490 56 81 39

Source: Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC)