- Paul Ingram
Wind Power Brewing up a Growth Storm. Potentially Meeting World's Electricity Needs 18 Times Ove
That's right, 18 times over! How? Bigger turbines, floating, lowering cost of technology as well as installation, and supportive government green policies, are all key for wind to take the energy world by storm.
At the moment wind power just accounts for a mere 0.3% of the world's energy.
However, a major industry report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) has claimed wind has the potential to provide sufficient clean electricity for everyone on Earth 18 times over.
Falling costs and increasing green policies is helping make wind power grow into a trillion dollar industry. Global off-shore wind alone could attract $1 trillion of cumulative investment possibly by 2040.
This large investment will only further increase the high rate of technological progress.
The IEA showed that global offshore wind market grew 30% per year between 2010 to 2018. With there currently being 150 new offshore wind farm projects in development across the world.
The Authors of the report wrote, "With high-quality resources available in most major markets, offshore wind has the potential to generate more than 420,000 terrawatt hours per year worldwide. This is more than 18 times global electricity demand today."
Although they go on to explain how much work there still is yet to do to reach this point.
The EU's current offshore capacity is just under 20 gigawatts, on the current path, that is expected to rise to almost 130 gigawatts by 2040. However, this could actually be 180 gigawatts if all EU countries meet their stated carbon-neutrality targets.
Will this increased reliance on wind power create a massive growth in battery and other forms of power storage at the same time?
Wind power being intermittent will possibly create a inconsistent power supply. Which storage can help even out.