Auctioned wind power rebounds to almost 7 GW in Q1 2021 - GWEC

Almost 7 GW of wind power capacity was awarded in auctions around the world in the first quarter of 2021, a rebound from a year earlier when the first wave of the pandemic led to only 2.7 GW auctioned, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said on Thursday.

Auctioned wind power rebounds to almost 7 GW in Q1 2021 - GWEC

Offshore wind accounted for 3.9 GW of the total as the second offshore wind solicitation in New York, postponed from July 2020, awarded 2.5 GW and an additional 1.4 GW was awarded in China across five projects in the Fujian province.

Onshore, India awarded 1.2 GW through its Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) Tranche-X Wind ISTS auction. GWEC noted that the auction was oversubscribed for the first time since February 2019 and registered a record-low winning bid for a SECI auction.

Almost 2 GW of onshore wind capacity was auctioned in Europe through tenders in Spain (998 MW), France (519.7 MW) and Italy (259 MW).

China awarded just 93 MW of onshore wind in the period but also announced an onshore wind auction with a parity-based feed-in-tariff totalling almost 6 GW, GWEC said.

Germany and Italy also announced new onshore wind auction capacity — 1,500 MW and 700 MW, respectively.

Poland, meanwhile, accounted for all of the 4.3 GW of offshore wind auction capacity announced in the quarter.

“It is safe to say that the market is well on its way to recovery, with more than 14 GW of new wind power auction capacity already announced this year,” said Feng Zhao, head of Market Intelligence and Strategy.

He added, however, that “last week’s Net Zero 2050 Roadmap released by the IEA shows that we are nowhere near the levels of new wind power capacity that is necessary to achieve net zero by the middle of this century.”

The roadmap calls for annual wind additions of at least 390 GW over the next decade.

Originally published at Renewables now