BAKU, Azerbaijan, March 5. The rollout of wind power from 2019 to 2023 resulted in an annual avoidance of approximately 830 million tons of CO2 emissions, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said, Trend reports.
According to the agency, once again, China leads the charts with the most substantial emissions avoided. In the European Union, the deployment of wind power throughout five years prevents emissions equivalent to nearly 5 percent of the region's total annual emissions in 2023.
Meanwhile, wind capacity additions worldwide surged by nearly 60 percent in 2023, surpassing the record set in 2020. Onshore wind projects contributed to over 85 percent of the global wind growth last year. China played a significant role, representing more than 60 percent of the global wind expansion, nearly doubling its additions compared to 2022.
In the EU, wind additions saw a modest increase of just under 10 percent in 2023, marked by a slowdown in onshore wind deployment. Meanwhile, the US experienced a decline of over a quarter in wind additions compared to 2022.
Although offshore wind growth rebounded from a significant drop in annual additions in 2022, caused by a rush to complete projects in China before the central government incentives were phased out in 2021, the recovery fell short of surpassing the record level of worldwide offshore wind capacity additions in 2021.
Overall, the offshore industry outside of China is grappling with challenges, with investment costs now over 20 percent higher than just a few years ago. In 2023, developers had to cancel or postpone 15 GW of offshore wind projects in the US and the UK because the pricing for previously awarded capacity does not align with the increased costs associated with project development today.