Thursday 15 March 2012

Europe leads world on wind capacity

Europe currently leads the world with the amount of wind capacity it has, according to US researchers. With close to 100,000 megawatts of wind capacity, the continent leads "all regions of the world", says an analyst at the Earth Policy Institute.

Across the globe, wind energy developers built a record 41,000 megawatts of electricity generating capacity in 2011.

This brings the world total to 238,000MW - enough to meet the home electricity needs of 380 million people at the European level of consumption, says the EPI.

However China blew the strongest, according to the figures, making the largest annual wind power gains for the third year running. J. Matthew Roney at the EPI suggests by 2020, China's "wind bases" will be more than the entire world had at the close of 2008.