Vestas, who has been in the wind energy market for four decades, became the first company to install 100 gigawatts (GW) of wind turbines around the world, the Danish wind giant announced Wednesday.
"In late 2018, a new milestone was reached in that 40-year journey, as Vestas achieved 100 GW of installed wind turbines with the installation of a V110-2.0 MW turbine at MidAmerican Energy’s Wind XI project in Iowa, U.S.," a statement read. According to the press release, since the inaugural installation of a V10-30 kilowatt turbine in Denmark in 1979, Vestas has installed over 66,000 turbines in around 80 countries across six continents and played a key part in taking wind energy from niche to mainstream.
"Today, Vestas' largest onshore wind turbine is the V150-4.2 MW turbine, and the 100 GW milestone has thus been made possible by the continuous evolution of our wind energy technology and solutions, which have seen output and efficiency increase to a level that has made wind energy the cheapest form of electricity in many markets," it said. According to the statement, by crossing this 100 GW threshold, Vestas, which remains one of the key players in the global wind energy market, has installed approximately 10 percent of the world's total 1 terawatt of installed wind and solar energy capacity.
Based on global average electricity, 100 GW of wind energy saves around 129 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, equivalent to emissions from 141 billion pounds of burned coal, 298 million barrels of oil, the annual electricity use in 22.54 million U.S. homes, 33 coal-fired power plants, and carbon sequestered from 152 million acres of forest, it said.
