The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) recently released their report on the global outlook of wind energy in 2008 and the increase in total wind capacity was staggering. In 2008 total wind power energy installations added up to an additional 27,000 MW from 2007’s capacity. The Top five countries with the most wind energy capacity in 2008 are: The United States, Germany, Spain, China and India.
Along with the explosive growth of wind energy installations came the jobs that go along with that. Over 400,000 people are now employed by the wind power industry.
The United States and China were the front leaders by doubling their capacity from previous years tally. The United States (25,170MW) had also dethroned Germany (23,903MW) as the country with the most number of wind energy capacity.
The Philippines meanwhile had only increased their total wind capacity by 8MW in 2008 (33MW total as of 2008). I’m expecting this to change soon with the Philippine Renewable Energy bill only being recently passed in December 2008.
The Philippine Renewable Energy Bill provides economic incentives to developers of renewable energy projects in the country. According to a report by the Renewable Energy Coalition (which lobbied for the passage of the Philippine RE Bill), the Philippines has a wind energy potential of about 76,600MW.
Possible stumbling blocks in the adaption of more wind energy projects in the Philippines however are the availability of credit due to the world wide credit crunch. The lack of interest by investors, despite the monetary incentives, due to the cheap price of oil brought about by the slumping economies. Of course there is also the shortage in availability of wind turbines that Energy Development Corp reported as to one reason they had a hard time getting the wind power project off the ground. The shortage in turbines of course if brought about by other countries ramping up their wind energy capacity.
Category: Wind, Clean Energy
