Global wind power growth slower than expected

There are 100 countries from all over the globe that currently harness wind energy and the global wind capacity is now over 282GW with 44.6GW added in 2012 alone, the record addition in a single year - according to a latest report by the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA).

However, this new record capacity still represented the lowest growth record in more than a decade, representing an annual growth of relatively modest 19.2%. 

This percentage would be even smaller without the spike that occured in second half of the year as US developers rushed to avoid the anticipated expiration of the wind energy production tax credit.

The majority of the new wind energy capacity in 2012 was added in China and United States, with around 13 GW in each of these two countries. These two countries are still the world's largest wind energy producers.

The fast developing Indian wind energy market added more than 2.5 GW of new wind energy capacity in 2012, while in Europe Germany and Spain still lead the way as the two largest wind energy markets in EU.

The Asian wind energy market accounted for most of new installastions in 2012 with 36.3 %, edging North America (31.3 %) and Europe (27.5 %).

The future wind energy outlook remains positive with  WWEA expecting 500 GW mark in global wind energy capacity to be reached by the end of 2016.