More
than 52 gigawatts (GW) of clean, emissions-free wind power was added globally
in 2017, bringing total installations to 539 GW worldwide, Global Wind Energy
Council (GWEC) said on Wednesday.
The
report stated that wind power is the most competitively priced technology in
many if not most markets worldwide.
"With
new records set in Europe, India and in the offshore sector, annual markets
will resume rapid growth after 2018," according to GWEC's Global Wind
Report: Annual Market Update released on Wednesday.
Wind
markets in Morocco, India, Mexico and Canada range in the area of $0.03
kilowatts-hour (kWh), with a recent Mexican tender coming in with prices well
below $0.02/kWh.
The
report underlined that offshore wind had its first ‘subsidy-free’ bids in
tenders in Germany and the Netherlands, with tenders of nearly 2GW of new
offshore wind capacity receiving no more than the wholesale price of
electricity.
Wind
penetration levels continue to increase rapidly. Denmark got 44 percent of its
electricity from wind in 2017, and Uruguay more than 30 percent, the report
showed.
"In
2017, wind supplied 11.6 percent of the EU’s power, led by Denmark, Portugal
and Ireland at 24 percent and Spain and Germany at just under 20 percent,"
the report read.
In
addition, four U.S. states get more than 30 percent of their electricity from
wind, as does the state of South Australia, along with a number of states in
Germany.
Steve
Sawyer, GWEC secretary general, said in the statement that wind power is
leading the charge in the transition away from fossil fuels; and continues to
blow away the competition on price, performance and reliability.
"Driven
by the improving economics of wind power, as well as solar and storage, the
outlines of a 100 percent renewable energy system are becoming clear,"
Sawyer concluded.
(Anadolu
Agency
)