Greentech Lead Asia: Wind energy industry has installed
almost 44GW of wind energy in 2011. Out of this, 50 percent was in China.
A market research report said the wind energy market will
stay between 15 percent and 20 percent growth until 2015.
Though the report predicts slowdown in the growth, this is
still the biggest opportunity for this type of converters in power electronics
compared to all other power electronics markets.
European on-shore market is now close to maturity. EU
countries are now starting to conquer and equip their off-shore potential.
Emerging markets (South America and Asia) are starting to
equip themselves to feed their grid with green energy.
According to the report, turbine architecture is changing,
and converters with them. The industry is aiming at greater efficiency and
reducing O&M (operating and maintenance) costs. Permanent magnets,
no-gearbox and full converters seems to be the ideal combination, if material
costs stay stable.
Converters are more demanding, and thus more power
electronics is required: converter market is at $4.5 billion today, and will
reach $5.5 billion in 2017.
Recently, TechNavio said the wind turbine components market
is expected to grow at a CAGR of 11.3 percent over the period 2011-2015. Key
vendors dominating this market space include Vestas Wind Systems, Sinovel Wind
Group, GE Energy, and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology. The need for
increased energy will be one of the key factors contributing to the significant
growth.