Energy Study Centre, KEC

One of the main messages from the Nobel Prize winning IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report released in 2007 was that in order to avoid the worst ravages of climate change, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak and begin to decline before 2020.

While the power sector is far from being the only culprit when it comes to climate change, it is the largest single source of emissions, accounting for about 40% of CO2 emissions, and about 25% of overall emissions. The options for making major emissions reductions in the power sector between now and 2020 are basically three: energy efficiency and conservation; fuel switching from coal to gas; and renewable energy, primarily wind power.

Wind power does not emit any climate change inducing carbon dioxide nor other air pollutants which are polluting the major cities of the world and costing billions in additional health costs and infrastructure damage. Within three to six months of operation, a wind turbine has offset all emissions caused by its construction, to run virtually carbon free for the remainder of its 20 year life. Further, in an increasingly carbon-constrained world, wind power is risk-free insurance against the long term downside of carbon intense investments.

Given the crucial timeframe up to 2020 during which global emission must start to decline, the speed of deployment of wind farms is of key importance in combating climate change. Building a conventional power plant can take 10 or 12 years or more, and until it is completed, no power is being generated. Wind power deployment is measured in months, and a half completed wind farm is just a smaller power plant, starting to generate power and income as soon as the first turbines are connected to the grid.

The global wind industry has set itself a target of saving 1.5 billion tons of CO2 per year by 2020, which would amount to a total of 10 billion tons saved in this period. See Global Wind 2008 Outlook for GWEC’s scenarios of wind energy development up to 2050.