Wind turbine market to surge as investors dash for renewables
SIEMENS, the world’s number three maker of wind turbines, expects the global wind power market to more than quadruple by 2030, lifted by strong growth in Asia.
“The market will shift away from Europe significantly,” Markus Tacke, chief executive of the German company’s Wind Power division, said at a renewable energy conference in Berlin.
He said globally installed wind power capacity would increase to 1,107 gigawatt in 2030 from 273 GW in 2012.
Asia and the Pacific region will soon account for more than 47 per cent of the total, up from 34 per cent now.
The prediction foreshadows moves by the financial sponsors to tap into the burgeoning sector.
Big company sponsors, such as private equity kingpin Guy Hand and his buyout firm Terra Firma, are scoping out the sector as potential source of income for its investors.
Terra Firma, which already owns a clutch of renewable energy firms, is understood to be in the market raising a $3bn (£2.6bn) renewable energy fund, called the Terra Firma Fund for Global Renewable Energy Infrastructure.
China Development Bank is thought to be contributing to the fund.
China itself is pumping billions of euros into wind power, which is more cost-competitive than solar energy and partly able to compete with coal and gas.
Wind power subsidies in most parts of Europe are being slowly scaled back.
The Europe and the Middle East region is still the world’s largest wind market, with a 40 per cent share that will decline to 34 per cent by 2030.