Refrigerators and air conditioning units feature high on the wish lists of people in hot countries. The International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that by the year 2030 the energy consumption for air conditioning in developing countries and emerging nations will be four times what it is today. It is often the case that the gases used as refrigerants are produced chemically. They are damaging to the ozone layer and accelerate climate change. By contrast green technologies use natural gases in the cooling process, are more energy efficient and can be driven by sun or wind power.

This is a European on-shore wind resources at 50 meters of altitude map, developed by Riso National Laboratory in 1989. The map shows the so-called generalised wind climate over Europe, also sometimes referred to as the regional wind climate or simply the wind atlas. In such a map, the influences of local topography have been removed and only the variations on the large scale are shown.

Renewable energy technologies can help countries meet their policy goals for secure, reliable and affordable energy to expand electricity access and promote development. This paper on wind power is part of a series on the cost and performance of renewable energy technologies produced by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The goal of these papers is to assist government decision-making and ensure that governments have access to up-to-date and reliable information on the costs and performance of renewable energy technologies.

Key findings:

Since 2010, the world has added more solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity than in the previous four decades. Total global capacity overtook 150 gigawatts (GW) in early 2014

The geographical pattern of deployment is rapidly changing. While a few European countries, led by Germany and Italy, initiated large-scale PV development, since 2013, the People’s Republic of China has led the global PV market, followed by Japan and the United States

PV system prices have been divided by three in six years in most markets, while module prices have been divided by five