BNEF: Global Commissioning of Onshore Wind Turbines Declined to 45 GW in 2018

Global players Vestas (Denmark), Goldwind (China), GE Renewable Energy (U.S.) and Siemens Gamesa (Germany/Spain) accounted for 57% of the machines deployed.

Vestas extended its lead with 10.1 GW of its onshore turbines commissioned in 2018 – a global market share of 22% compared with 16% in 2017. The statistics draw on BloombergNEF's (BNEF) global database of wind projects and extensive information from the industry.

Chinese manufacturer Goldwind rose from third to second place, lifted by a strong performance in China, where it captured a third of the 19.3 GW market. Outside of its home market, the company remains very limited with a share of only 5% of the 6.7 gigawatts Goldwind reached overall.

The third place went to GE which also worked best in its home market: six out of every ten GE turbines were commissioned in the U.S. Both GE and Vestas commissioned just over 3 GW in the U.S., with Vestas leading by 44 MW in the neck-to-neck race for U.S. market leadership.

Siemens Gamesa  dropped from second to fourth place, with 4.1 GW commissioned in 2018. This is 40% less than in 2017, although the tally does not include a number of very large wind farms that are only partially built and will not come online until 2019.

“Chinese manufacturers rely almost solely on their home market,” said Tom Harries, senior wind analyst at BNEF and lead author of the BNEF report Global Wind Turbine Market Shares. “Of the European onshore wind turbine makers to make the top 10, Vestas and Nordex actually commissioned more capacity in the Americas than in Europe. Most of Enercon’s turbines are in Europe. Siemens Gamesa is the most diversified, with a near equal split across Europe, the Americas and Asia.”

“In offshore wind, it’s been a record year for China, and we will see more growth,” Harries continued. “Some 1.7 GW of the global 4.3 GW was commissioned there. In Europe it was a tight race between Siemens Gamesa and MHI Vestas. GE has some projects coming up in France, and we also expect to see orders for their new 12MW platform.”