Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Table
.
Wind energy output as percentage of
capacity (
)
Wind capacity
(gigawatts)
Wind output
(terawatt-hours)
Average output
(% of capacity)
Country
United States
%
Germany
%
Spain
%
China
%
United
Kingdom
%
World
%
with the aim of facilitating and accelerating the deploy-
ment of wind energy systems.
The members of the group
have about
% of total worldwide installed wind cap-
acity. There are better and worse areas for wind energy
than Germany.
Table
shows the average wind output
from several countries as a fraction of installed capacity;
the E.ON result is not that unusual. The total installed
world wind capacity is
.
GW, and at
%ef
ciency the
world wind turbine output is about equal to
% of elec-
tricity consumption. Denmark is the wind champion in
the fraction of total electricity generation from wind,
getting
% of its electricity from wind turbines. Though
small today, installed capacity worldwide is growing by
about
% per year.
The European Union has a target of
% of its energy
from renewables by the year
. Speci
c targets are yet
See
www.ieawind.org/annual_report.html
for a summary of data from
around the world.
