The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) has come up with some interesting stats and it seems 2008 has been a good year for the wind power industry.

Global wind energy capacity grew by 28.8 percent last year to reach total global installations of more than 120.8 GW at the end of 2008. The U.S. and China were named the leaders in terms of  newly installed capacity, as growth in the U.S. wind industry increased the nation’s total wind power generating capacity by 50 percent, while China once again doubled its installed capacity.

“These figures speak for themselves: there is huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world. Wind energy is the only power generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in CO2 in the critical period up to 2020, when greenhouse cases must peak and begin to decline to avoid dangerous climate change,” said Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of GWEC.

“The 120 GW of global wind capacity in place at the end of 2008 will produce 260 TWh and save 158 million tons of CO2 every year.”