According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the wind sector is forecast to experience a drastic growth in coming years. New capacity additions exceeded 52 GW in 2017 and should remain steady in 2018; they would accelerate in 2019, passing the 60 GW milestone in 2020 and move upwards to reach 840 GW by 2022. This would represent an addition of 300 MW of new wind power in the next four years.
China will remain the largest wind market though its installation growth rate should slow down and wind installations will remain strong in the United States at least through 2020. New markets will emerge in Asia and Africa, while Brazil will continue to dominate Latin American markets, challenged by Argentina.
The main driver behind this growth is likely to be cost reductions for both onshore and offshore wind. Several markets such as Morocco, India, Mexico and Canada have price ranging in the area of US$3c/kWh. Offshore wind tenders without any subsidies are also developing in Germany and the Netherlands, with nearly 2 GW of new offshore wind capacity receiving no more than the wholesale electricity price.