March '08: Global Wind Power to Top 100,000 MW

Global wind power is here and booming. From The Earth Policy Institute (EPI):

At its current growth rate, global installed wind power capacity will top 100,000 megawatts in March 2008.

Here's why that's important.

If that prediction bears fruit, then by the end of today the world will have added about 6,000 new MW since January 1. And if that level of growth continues for the remainder of '08, it will equal a 27 percent annual leap for the second consecutive year, and another record for wind power.

EPI explains that in 2007, wind power capacity increased by 20,000 megawatts in just 12 months, bringing the total to 94,100 megawatts worldwide and beating every expectation Wall Street and others had for the energy source.

Meanwhile, that amount of power was enough to satisfy the residential electricity needs of 150 million people. And it also meant that 2007 became the first full year in history that wind power additions in Europe exceeded the additions of any other power source.

The US too had a banner year, you may recall. EPI sums it up:

• For the third year running, the US led the world with new wind power installations.
• In the fourth quarter of 2007 alone, the US figures exceeded those for all of 2006.
• The US is now on track to overtake Germany, the world’s long-time leader in installed wind power capacity, by the end of 2009.
• Wind farms are now found in 34 states and total 16,800 megawatts. Note: The electrical output from these farms is equivalent to that from 16 coal-fired power plants, enough to power 4.5 million U.S. homes.

The report also reminds us exactly how it all came to be in America:

The recent exceptional growth in the United States is largely due to an extension of the wind production tax credit under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.

Ah, the wrinkle.

The federal tax credit is set to expire in December 2008. Its renewal has been thwarted twice by the Senate with a looming veto threat by the Bush administration. Many in the industry are now expecting to be left in the lurch until the changing of the guard in 2009. And if that lapse ends up being too long or too uncertain, it could be a giant buzz-kill for America’s wind power industry and its hungry investors.

In the last decade or so, America's wind power sector had three years of stagnant growth. In 2000, 2002 and 2004.

In all of those years the federal Production Tax Credit for renewables was allowed to elapse. And the market evaporated.

EPI has the stats. Coincidence? Don't think so.

Politicians pulled the plug on clean energy’s future in each of these instances and stymied American leadership. Beware of a four-peat in '09.

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