36 July/August 2012 | Renewable Energy Focus

Focus on renewable power generation

Around half of the new wind

capacity installed globally last year

was in Asia (See table). By far the

largest national market remains

China with 17.6GW of new capac-

ity installed. This was though slightly

down on the 18.9GW installed in 2010

and the country is still struggling to

expand its grid and transmission net-

work to keep pace with wind farm

development. Up to a third of the

country’s wind capacity is still waiting

to be connected to the grid, according

to some industry commentators.

In Asia’s other major market,

India, some 2.7GW of wind power was

installed to take the country’s cumu-

lative capacity to around 16GW by

end 2011.

After a slow start, the US had a

strong fourth quarter adding 3.44GW

in the last three months of 2011 to

take its year total for new additions

to 6.8GW. Canada also performed well

with 1.3GW installed, although it was

not enough to put North America

ahead of Europe in terms of annual

market share.

With just under 2.1GW in new

capacity installed, Germany accounted

for over a fi fth of Europe’s 10.1GW

year total. Signifi cantly wind power

accounted for 8% of Germany’s elec-

tricity supply in 2011. Meantime,

it was also a good year for the UK

with 1.29GW of new wind capacity

installed to bring its cumulative tally

to 6.54GW.

Off shore development barely

blipped the radar in terms of new Summary of global wind power market, end 2011

Cumulated installed

capacity 2011 (GW)

Installed capacity 2011

(GW)

Estimated electricity

generation 2011 (TWh)

Europe 97.6 10.2 199.8

North America 52.4 8.1 123.2

South America 4.2 1.5 3.9

Asia 79.2 21.0 156.8

OECD – Pacifi c 6.1 0.7 12.2

Africa 1.2 0.1 2.1

World Total 241 41.7 498.0

Largest National Market

China 62.4 China 17.6 China 119.8

Off shore (of the above) 3.9 0.4

Wind market still on the up and dominated by China

DESPITE THE fi nancial crisis the market for

wind energy continued to grow in 2011. By the

year end more than 199,000 turbines with a com-

bined capacity of 241GW were installed globally. Just over

17% of this capacity, or 41.7GW, was added in 2011, which

is 6% up on the capacity installed in 2010. Global mar-

ket growth in terms of total installed capacity was about

22%, while the average growth rate over the last fi ve

years remains an impressive 26.5%.

additions, with just 470MW installed,

down from 1.4GW in 2010. The UK

remains the main market accounting

for around 70% of 2011 installations,

while the fi rst German commer-

cial off shore wind farm, the 48.3MW

Baltic 1 project, became fully oper-

ational in May 2011 (In July EnBWsold just under 50% of the project to

19 municipal utilities and in Decem-

ber the wind farm was successfully

refi nanced).

Despite the lull in new capacity

additions, the off shore market was

active and Germany’s market showed

particular signs of picking up momen-

tum. Financial close was reached for

both the Meerwind project (288MW)

and Global Tech I (400MW). On the

equity side utilities Dong and Vat-tenfall both purchased further proj-

ect rights.

Meantime, off shore construction

commenced at the 200MW Borkum

West II with the pre-piling works for

the tripod foundations underway. The

project was the fi rst to use a so-called

large bubble curtain to reduce the

noise during pile driving.

Supplier rankings, projects, and technology trends

Vestas remains the largest turbine

manufacturer, accounting for 20.9%

of the cumulative market and 12.9%

of new installations in 2011. In second

place was China’s Goldwind, whilst

last year’s runner up, Sinovel, slipped

fi ve places in the rankings to seventh,

followed by GE Wind and Gamesa.

A key project commissioned last

year features 6MW and 7.5MW tur-

bines from Enercon, which was

placed fi fth in terms of 2011 capacity

additions. The Estinnes Wind Park

in Belgium comprises 11 Enercon

E-126 wind turbines and is the fi rst

onshore wind farm using such large

turbines.

REF_0412_Status_WindNEW 36 17-08-12 10:23:04

37July/August 2012 | Renewable Energy Focus

Focus on renewable power generation

Meantime, some very large proj-

ects were again commissioned in

the United States. This includes the

443.9MW Rolling Hills project in Iowa,

comprising of 193 Siemens SWT-2.3-

101 wind turbines.

In Australia, another large project,

the 420MW Macarthur wind farm,

started construction in 2011. Compris-

ing 140 Vestas V112-3MW, it was one

of the fi rst projects to be announced

using the new turbine and once com-

pleted will be the largest wind farm in

the Southern Hemisphere.

In terms of technology trends the

low-wind site turbines announced in

previous years are now starting to

come to market. In June 2011, Ener-

con installed the fi rst prototype of its

new E-101 3MW turbine class, while

in December Nordex installed its

fi rst N117 2.4MW prototype design in

northern Germany.

The zero series of Vestas’ new fl ag-

ship product, the V112-3MW, was

installed at various sites in Ger-

many during 2011. During the sum-

mer, the Danish fi rm started serial

production with the fi rst batch of tur-

bines shipped in October 2011. That

same month the company said it

had received over 1GW of fi rm and

unconditional orders for the V112-

3.0MW unit.

Turbine development for the off -

shore sector meanwhile was very active.

In terms of plans for new designs, Ves-

tas announced it is developing a 7MW

machine with a 164m rotor diameter,

while Germany’s Nordex revealed plans

for the N150/6000, a 6MW direct drive

turbine with 150m rotor diameter.

Spain’s Gamesa launched its 5MW

G128 machine, with plans for a 6-7MW

turbine (the G14X) also in the works,

while another 7MW design was

announced by Mitsubishi (with 165m

rotor). AREVA Wind also announced

plans for a 135m rotor version of its

M5000 turbine, currently available only

with a 116m rotor.

Meantime in June, Siemens installed

its prototype SWT-6.0 6MW gear-

less off shore turbine at the test site

in Høvsøre, Denmark, while XEMC Darwind, a subsidiary of the Chinese

corporation XEMC, installed a pro-

totype of its XE115-5000 5MW direct

drive off shore turbine in the Nether-

lands. And in China, local manufac-

turer Sinovel installed a prototype of its

6 MWSL6000 turbine in October.

Turbine development for the off shore wind sector has been very active: Danish fi rm Vestas, which remains the leading overall turbine supplier globally, has a 7MW off shore turbine in the works. (Photo courtesy of Vestas Wind Systems A/S)

Off shore development barely blipped the radar in terms of new additions...but turbine development for the off shore sector was very active

Off shore grid connection in

Europe up 50%2012 could turn out to be the

best year ever for off shore wind energy in Europe, says the Euro-pean Wind Energy Association (EWEA). The 132 new off shore wind turbines, totalling 523.2MW, connected to the European grid in the fi rst six months of the year, represents a 50% increase on the 348.1MW connected in the same period in 2011, it says. Further-more they bring Europe’s operating off shore wind capacity to 4336MW by end June.

EWEA notes that a further 160 off shore turbines, totalling 647.4MW, have been installed but are still awaiting grid connection. It adds that some 13 wind farms were under construction in the fi rst half of 2012 and that once completed they will account for an additional capacity of 3762MW.

“Off shore wind power is increas-ingly attracting investors, including pension funds and other institu-tional and corporate investors, but it would be good to see more activity in southern Europe where jobs, investments and growth are desperately needed,” says EWEA’s CEO, Christian Kjaer.

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