Record figure for wind turbine installation in 2021

Some 30 wind turbine manufacturers installed 104.7 gigawatts (GW) of new wind power capacity in 2021, a record for that year.
According to a report by the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), this figure corresponds to the assembly of 29,234 wind turbines around the world last year.

Medium-speed wind turbines are gaining in popularity, the data shows, with their market share rising in 2021 to 9.7 percent, up 3.6 percent from 2020.

GWEC director of strategy and market intelligence, Feng Zhao, extolled that more than 100 GW of wind power capacity was installed in 2021, making it the best year in history for this type of generation.

He demonstrates, he added, the incredible resilience of this industry.

“Of the top 15 global wind turbine suppliers at the end of the previous calendar, ten come from China, but only two from the Asian giant are among the top five,” he said.

He revealed that in 2021, the volume of wind turbines exported by that nation almost tripled compared to the preceding period.

The executive director of GWEC, Ben Backwell, argued for his part that this new installation record is a testament to the key role that this form of generation is playing in the energy transition, and in protecting people and economies from high fossil fuel prices.

“As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres pointed out, governments must take urgent action to initiate a much faster transition to renewable energy and remove barriers to deployment and investment, including cutting red tape”.