BloombergNEF’s 2022 Global Wind Turbine Market Shares report indicates that global installed capacity of wind power had arrived at 86GW in 2022 after China and the US, the two largest markets in the world, had halted in installation growth, where most hoisting of new wind turbines came from onshore win power at 89%, while new installed capacity of offshore wind power had dropped to 9.1GW under a YoY reduction of 46%.
Cristian Dinca, analyst of wind power at BloombergNEF, commented that this should serve as a wake-up call since new hoisting of wind power is currently slowing down while governments around the world are elevating in ambition towards decarbonization.
Goldwind has once again arrived the first place in the ranking of new installed capacity among global wind turbine manufacturers by replacing Vestas.
Goldwind reached 12.7GW in new installed capacity for wind power throughout 2022, of which nearly 90% was generated by the Chinese market, while Vestas that is headquartered in Denmark had added 12.3GW of wind power installations during 2022, which exceeded 3GW compared to its US competitor General Electric. This indicates that the top three wind turbine manufacturers come from China, Europe, and the US. Envision, another Chinese wind turbine manufacturer, is ranked at fourth place, and followed by Siemens Gamesa and Mingyang Smart Energy at fifth place.
Top 10 Global Wind Turbine Manufacturers in 2022
Source: BloombergNEF (Note: total new installed capacity of wind power was 86GW in 2022.)
2022 was the second year to China’s cancellation of subsidization on offshore wind power projects, which led to a drastic shrinkage in the scale of offshore wind power. Fortunately, the UK’s aggressive hoisting had offset the corresponding impact, and managed to surpass 3GW in new installed capacity of wind power for the first time. European wind turbine manufacturer Vestas, having seized on this opportunity, ended up at first place in new installed capacity of offshore wind power, where second and third places were respectively occupied by Shanghai Electric and Mingyang Smart Energy.
Oliver Metcalfe, Head of Wind Research at BloombergNEF, commented that the drop of offshore wind power is estimated to be temporary since both Germany and the Netherlands are going to once again install large projects in 2023, and that the particular industry would continue to expand in emerging markets, such as France and Taiwan.
BloombergNEF found that China had added 49GW of new installed capacity for wind power during 2022, meaning that China now occupies more than 50% of new global wind power installations. Six wind turbine manufacturers headquartered in China have made it to the BloombergNEF’s top 10 global ranking. The US, despite still sitting at second place in new installed capacity for wind power, had declined by more than 4GW in increment during 2022.
Metcalfe commented that uncertainties yielded by the extension of tax preferential for wind power projects had obstructed development of the US wind power industry for two consecutive years. Changes were seen after the approval of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022, where the corresponding incentives would facilitate an accumulation of 135GW wind power capacity from now to 2030, proving that the government would be able to exert key functions while attaining the target of net zero emission.
(Cover photo source: pixabay)