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Over the past ten years, global wind power capacity has continued to grow at an average cumulative rate of over 30%, and 2008 was another record year with more than 27 GW of new installations, bringing the total up to over 120 GW. The United States passed Germany to become the number one market in wind power, and China’s total capacity doubled for the fourth year in a row.

Wind energy has grown into an important player in the world’s energy markets, with the 2008 market for turbine installations worth about €36.5bn.

The wind industry also creates many new jobs: over 400,000 people are now employed in this industry, and that number is expected to be in the millions in the near future.

Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse cases must peak and begin to decline to avoid dangerous climate change. The 120.8 GW of global wind capacity will produce 260 TWh and save 158 million tons of CO2 every year.

The mission of the Global Wind Energy Council is to ensure that wind power establishes itself as one of the world’s leading energy sources, providing substantial environmental and economic benefits.

GWEC works on four main areas:

Policy development: To participate in policy and regulatory forums that work to create frameworks for wind power development.

Business leadership: To provide the strategic and business leadership needed to engage external stakeholders.

Global outreach: To work with emerging markets to transfer know-how and strengthen the development of wind energy world-wide.

Information and education: To serve as a platform for providing quality information, expertise, analysis and data about wind energy.