ABSTRACT
The period of 2010-13 was the trigger for a wholesale reset of the wind-turbine industry, which led to the emergence of bigger, more efficient, more resilient companies and helped create the conditions for a renewed, more sustainable period of growth. This chapter looks at some of the key challenges facing the wind sector by identifying some of the unresolved contradictions at work in the industry, as well discusses some new features and developments in the market and political landscape. The growth of the wind industry has been a story of spectacular – followed by steady – growth. But the global figures mask a series of stop-start patterns that can be extremely abrupt. Globalisation is also widely considered key to the wind industry's ambition to bring about a sustained reduction in turbine production costs, and therefore in the cost of energy from wind power.
