Global wind capacity to nearly double in next five years - GWEC

By Nina Chestney

LONDON (Reuters) - Global wind energy capacity will nearly double in the next five years, largely led by further market growth in China, but also as a stronger industry emerges in the United States, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said on Tuesday.

In its annual report on the status of the global wind industry, GWEC said cumulative wind energy capacity was 433 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2015, a 17 percent rise from the year before.

That should nearly double to around 792 GW by the end of 2020 as countries develop more renewable energy to comply with emissions cut targets, prices continue to fall and policies to support wind power in the United States stabilise, the wind industry association said in the report.

Wind energy installed in 2015 reached 63 GW, a 22 percent increase from the previous year. China alone installed nearly half of that new capacity -- 30.8 GW.

In December last year in Paris, almost 200 countries agreed a landmark deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 2020 with the aim of limiting global average temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius.

"The Paris Agreement requires a fully decarbonised power system by 2050 if not before, if we are keeping temperatures below 2 C above pre-industrial levels," Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General, said in a statement.

New markets in Africa, Asia and Latin America are also emerging which will be sources of growth in the next decade.

Outside of China, the Asian market will be led by India but new markets in Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Pakistan and Mongolia are also developing quickly, the report said.