Bloomberg
China installed almost three times more wind power than the U.S. last year, continuing its clean-energy investment blitz to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase air quality.
China led new global wind-power installations with 23.3 gigawatts, compared with 8.2 gigawatts in second-place U.S., according to a report published Friday by the Global Wind Energy Council. About 54.6 gigawatts of new turbines were installed globally, raising total capacity to about 487 gigawatts worldwide.
Even as China races ahead of other countries in terms of installed wind capacity, its turbines aren’t producing electricity at the same rate because of inadequate transmission infrastructure. Even with more than double the installed capacity as the U.S., China generated only 241 terawatt-hours of wind power compared with 224 terawatt-hours, according to data from China’s National Energy Administration and the U.S. Energy Information Administration showing generation over 12-months ending in the fourth quarter.
