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WIND COULD GENERATE 10% OF
WORLD'S ELECTRICITY,
CREATE 1.7 MILLION NEW JOBS BY 2020
Clean Energy Technology Advancing Rapidly,
Could Tap Vast Resource, New Study Says
Wind energy's enormous potential is dramatically underscored by a new study that finds that it could create 1.7 million jobs by the year 2020, the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) said today.
The study, released today at the Financial Times World Renewable Energy Conference in Brussels, Belgium, is entitled "Wind Force 10: A Blueprint to
Achieve 10% of the World's Electricity from Wind Power by 2020." It was commissioned from the international wind energy consulting firm BTM Consult by
the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), the Danish Forum for Energy and
Development, and the environmental group Greenpeace.
Wind Force 10 envisions the installation of 1.2 million megawatts (MW) of wind energy capacity worldwide by 2020 (one MW supplies about as much
electricity as 250 average American homes use). At that level of development,
wind would produce more electricity than the entire continent
of Europe consumes today. In the process, 1.7 million jobs would be created and
global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), the leading greenhouse gas, would be
reduced by more than 10 billion metric tons.
To achieve the 10% target, the report calls on governments to establish firm targets for wind development, remove regulatory barriers, end subsidies to
nuclear power and fossil fuels, and introduce a range of legally-enforced mechanisms to promote wind energy. The release of Wind Force 10 comes just
months after the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) unveiled its own wind energy
development plan, Wind Powering America, which calls for 5% of U.S. electricity
demand to be supplied by wind by 2020. The DOE plan would result in $60 billion in capital
investment in rural America over the next 20 years and the creation of 80,000
jobs. (For more information, see http://www.eren.doe.gov/windpoweringamerica)
"There are some who claim that wind energy is pie in the sky, but everyone who has looked seriously at its potential over the past 25 years has
found the numbers to be very large," commented Tom Gray, AWEA Director of Communications. "The resource is vast, there is plenty of land and shallow
offshore water for siting equipment, and the cost of the technology is declining steadily.
"It's small wonder that wind has been the fastest-growing energy technology worldwide during the 1990s, expanding at an average rate of 22%
annually during the decade and 40% annually over the past six years. The U.S.
urgently needs to do more to realize the potential of its abundant
wind resources."
Highlights of Wind Force 10 include:
- 1.2 million MW of wind capacity would generate about 3 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity yearly, or more than the total 1996
electric generation of China, Asia, and Latin America combined.
- 3 trillion kWh also exceeds the current generation of the world's nuclear
power plants, which produced 2.3 trillion kWh in 1998.
- The world's total wind potential is 53 trillion kWh, or more than 17 times
the Wind Force 10 goal.
- The cost of wind energy is projected to decline from 4.7 cents/kWh today to
below 3 cents/kWh by 2013 and 2.5 cents/kWh by 2020.
- Denmark, a pioneer in wind power, is already obtaining 10% of its electricity
from wind. The Danish government has adopted an official target of meeting 50%
of national electricity demand with wind by 2030, through offshore wind plant
development.
- Wind's growth rate is expected to slow from the current 40% annually to 20%
over the next five years. To reach the Wind Force 10 goal, it would need to
expand at the following rates: 30% from 2004 through 2010, 20% from 2011
through 2015, and 10% from 2016 to 2020.
AWEA, formed in 1974, is the national trade association of the U.S. wind energy
industry. The association's membership of more than 700 includes turbine manufacturers, wind project developers, utilities, academicians, and interested
individuals from 49 states. More information on wind energy is available
elsewhere on this Web site: www.awea.org
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