Wind is one of the most mature – if not the most mature – renewable energy sectors. But it was clear this week that the industry is still experiencing growing pains.
After two and a half days and 15 interviews with industry leaders at the WindPower 2010 conference in Dallas, I’ve come away with a growing sense that 2010 is going to be a really difficult year for wind in the U.S.
Clearly, a lot of people have been saying this for some time as market conditions have shifted to make it more difficult to develop projects. Natural gas and oil prices have dropped, stimulus funds haven’t been deployed as much as expected and we have no national target for renewables.
Add in the threat of a double-dip recession, rapidly-worsening transmission constraints and the pressure on turbine suppliers from emerging Asian companies, and you have all the ingredients for a challenging year in the U.S. wind market.
Most industry players expect a 40-50% drop in installations this year, putting us at around 5 GW of installed capacity. According to IHS Emerging Energy Research, this will the first time since 2004 that wind installations have dropped from the previous year’s levels.
Last quarter the industry put just over 500 MW online in the U.S., which is 2,300 MW less than the first quarter of 2009. This is a sign that the market has been severely weakened. Although developers installed 10 GW of wind capacity last year, many of those projects were spill-overs from 2008. Now the signs of those weaknesses in the market are finally showing in the numbers.
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