The country's wind power capacity is now one of roughly 92 GW, report says

Apr 15, 2014 11:43 GMT  ·  By

Figures that have recently been shared with the public by the Chinese Wind Energy Association say that, just last year, the country added over 16 gigawatts of wind power capacity. Thus, at the end of 2013, China's overall wind power capacity was one of roughly 92 gigawatts.

In its report, the Chinese Wind Energy Association details that, according to information on the matter at hand, the exact amount of wind capacity that China installed in 2013 was 16,089 megawatts. Come the year's end, the country boasted a total of 92,038 megawatts of wind power capacity.

To put things into perspective, it must be said that the total amount of wind energy capacity that was installed on a global scale in 2013 was one of 35,501 megawatts. This means that China's added capacity accounted for nearly 50% of the one set in place worldwide.

In fact, specialists working with the Chinese Wind Energy Association maintain that, in 2013, wind power turned out to be more popular in China than it was in all of Europe's countries combined, Clean Technica informs.

Interestingly enough, it appears that, despite its increasing interest in this clean energy source, China is still a tad biased when it comes to different types of wind farms. More precisely, it is said that, of the 16,089 megawatts of new capacity that were installed last year, just 39 came from offshore facilities.

The same source tells us that, last year, the three clean energy companies that were king and queen of wind power in China were Vision Energy, Shanghai Electric, and XEMC. These companies are said to have provided over 1,000 megawatts worth of wind turbines to this branch of the energy sector.

By comparison, Vestas provided just 500 megawatts worth of wind turbines. This means that, whereas the former hold a share of 20% of last year's installed capacity, Vestas holds one of merely 3.3%, the Chinese Wind Energy Association explains.

By the looks of it, most of the China's added wind power capacity in 2013 was installed in Xinjiang. This region is followed closely by Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Shandong. It is estimated that, together, these four regions account for 46% of the country's new wind capacity.

Thanks to the installation of these over 16 gigawatts of clean power capacity in 2013, the country's wind energy output surpassed that of nuclear plants for the first time ever. Specialists say that, should China continue to develop its green energy industry at this rapid pace, it will likely hit a total of 1,000 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2050.

Seeing how the country's long-term love affair with coal and other dirty energy sources is the chief reason why China is now dealing with a major air pollution crisis, it comes as good news that the country is ready and willing to invest in renewables.