Global wind power capacity increased by 22.5% in 2010 with 35.8 GW of new installations built, taking the total worldwide to 194.5 GW at end-2010 from 158.7 GW a year earlier, according to figures published Wednesday by the Global Wind Energy Council. A total of $65 billion was invested in the sector worldwide, the GWEC said.

But the overall growth rate was lower than the previous year for the first time in 20 years. In 2009, 38.6 GW was installed.GWEC noted that more than half of the new capacity built in 2010 came outside the traditional wind markets of Europe and North America, with China and other Asian nations witnessing a boom. China alone added 16.5 GW, to almost have the total new capacity.

The total wind power generating capacity in China is currently 12,000 MW, but the nation, which is growing at the most rapid rate among all the countries in the world, wants to raise it to 20,000 MW by next year. This is an increase of its goal for wind power generation capacity by the year 2020 to as much as 100,000 megawatts. China expects to have an annual wind power growth rate of 20 percent, according to Fang Junshi, head of the coal department of the National Energy Administration.

China is the fourth largest producer of wind energy in the world, after the United States, Germany and Spain, and is aims to have 40 percent of all its energy originate from renewable energy sources by 2050.

“China is powering ahead with no visible signs of slowing down,” said Steve Sawyer of the Global Wind Energy Council “If anything it is accelerating. They intend to become the largest market in the world, very clearly, and they probably will unless things take off in the US again in the relatively near term.”