wind power

Within a short period of time, the dynamic development of wind power has resulted in the establishment of a flourishing global market. In Europe, favourable policy incentives were the early drivers for the global wind market. However, since 2009 more than three quarters of the annual capacity installed was outside Europe and this trend is likely to continue. The boom in demand for wind power technology has nonetheless led to supply constraints. As a consequence, the cost of new systems has increased. The industry is continuously expanding production capacity, however, so it is already resolving the bottlenecks in the supply chain. Taking into account market development projections, learning curve analysis and industry expectations, we assume that investment costs for wind turbines will reduce by 25% for onshore and more than 50% for offshore installations up to 2050. Additional costs for grid integration of up to 25% of investment has been taken into account also in the cost data for wind power shown in Table 4.8.