German Wind Energy Market Grows Despite Economic Crisis

According to that, the German wind power market grew 15 percent in spite of the economic crisis. With 952 new installed wind turbines and 1,917 MW of new wind power capacity in 2009, the number of installations in 2009 exceeded the new installed capacity in 2008 by 250 MW.

The REpower Systems AG successfully expanded its market share from 5,6 percent in 2008 to 8,8 percent in 2009. With this REpower Systems AG still is the third largest producer of wind turbines in Germany. By the end of 2009 21.164 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 25,777 MW were installed in Germany.

The world market for wind energy turbines grew in 2009, too. Due to their economic programs the USA – the largest growth market for wind energy turbines behind China – excelled the forecasts: The new installed capacity rose from 8,400 MW in 2008 to 9,900 MW in 2009, so that the United States now have an overall capacity of 35,159 MW and still are the country with the most installed capacity in the world.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has recently published “Wind in power: 2009 European statistics”. It says that with a total of 39%, more new wind power capacity was installed in the EU in 2009 than any other electricity-generating technology. All together, renewable energies reached 61% of new power generating capacity in this period of time.

Gas and photovoltaics followed wind energy with 26% and 16%. Another significant figure of the statistic is that more coal, fuel oil and nuclear capacity were decommissioned in Europe than installed.

2009 is already the second year in which wind power capacity is the leading technology in this field with 10,163 megawatt (MW) installed across Europe; it can even record a rise from 35% in 2008 to 39% in 2009.

Germany contributed 19% to this share and with that holds rank two after Spain where 24% new capacity were installed. Having a look at the total wind power capacity of 74,767 MW in the EU Germany is still in the first position followed by Spain, Italy, France and the UK.

www.repower.de