2009: A bleak outlook for wind energy

Global wind energy investments will suffer this year, thanks to the ongoing economic crisis, according to a recent report from HSBC.

The Wall Street Journal’s Environmental Capital blog says the bank has downgraded its 2009 expectations for the global wind market, revising its initial forecast that wind installations would remain flat to predict that installations would decline by 20 percent worldwide this year.

Injections of green-energy capital from governments in the US and elsewhere, HSBC noted, are likely only to stave off even worse declines in wind and solar development, rather than to stimulate continued growth over last year’s figures.

The situation will be worst in the US, which can expect to see wind installations plummet by 40 percent in 2009, according to HSBC.

Such predictions mean 2009 is likely to be a far cry from last year, when global wind-energy capacity grew by a record 28.8 percent and the US took the number-one spot in wind power, reaching a total installed capacity of 25,170 megawatts.