Wind Power in Context – A clean Revolution in the Energy Sector

Rechsteiner, Rudolf

2008

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This study is about growth, past forecasts and the future prospects of wind energy. Wind power net capacity additions over the last ten years (1998-2007) have showed a mean growth rate of 30.4 percent per year, corresponding to a doubling of net additions every 2½ years. In 2007, net capacity additions reached 19553 Megawatts, a level that most energy pundits failed to anticipate. Net additions, in 2007, were 417 percent bigger than the mean estimate published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), in its World Energy Outlook 1995-2004 editions. In the IEA’s most recent World Energy Outlook (2008) scenario, it again predicts a low growth “reference scenario” for wind power with only a 2.2 percent increase of annual wind capacity additions over the 2010-2030 period. This study takes a different view, developing four global scenarios for the future of wind power, after scrutinizing some of the most established forecasts for the wind sector. It assumes a continuous growth of global wind power additions over the next decades. The driving force for this growth is not ecological or moral motivations but the demonstrable economic advantages of wind power, including the abundant and cost free primary energy source (wind) which never runs out, easy technology access, short time to market, stable life-cycle-costs and continuous cost reductions due to progress on the learning curve. The study concludes that roadblocks against wind power growth, such as fluctuations of wind, lack of grid connections and lack of reserve capacities, will be overcome through: planning, growing price incentives derived from the observed increase of oil prices and the restructuring of electricity markets (unbundling). Technical improvements will further propel the wind industry to deliver ever more affordable, secure and clean electricity at a very high speed that will be unattainable by more traditional technologies such as nuclear, natural gas or coal. Wind and solar, accompanied by hydro power, biomass and geothermal energy will pave the way to a 100 percent renewable power generation, very probably within the first half of this century. [Extracto: Abstract]

Energía eólica; Escenarios;