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.”

A civil and environmental engineering professor at Stanford has conducted a study on “clean energy” technologies. Professor Mark Z. Jacobsen concluded that wind is the cleanest of the technologies. Other winners, in order, are concentrated solar (the use of mirrors to heat a fluid), geothermal, tidal, solar photovoltaics (rooftop solar panels), wave, and hydroelectric.

The lesser forms of the clean energy technologies include biofuels, nuclear, and “clean coal,” which Jacobsen says do not live up to their “clean” hype.

Denmark is leading the wind power race. And they’re doing a little too well. Denmark gets about 20% of its total electrical power from wind, and on more blustery days, that percentage can double, putting a strain on their electricity grids. And although this may not seem like a problem for us consumers, on a windy day the price of electricity can drop to zero, putting utility companies in a tough spot as they try to offload excess power.

To offset these loses, Dong Energy, a Danish utility company has found a way to utilize this excess wind power. The company, one of Northern Europe’s leading energy groups, has plans to build a nationwide system to charge electric cars with the surplus wind power. Partnering with a California-based company, a time-line has been put in place to have the infrastructure to support a country-wide electric car system by 2010.

Denmark has built stronger connections to nearby Germany, Sweden and Norway so it can sell excess electricity on windy days. When it blows in Denmark for example, Norway buy cheap power to supplement their own hydropower resources.

“We have to keep investing heavily in the grid to make sure we can transport the electricity from wind when and where it is most needed,” said Peter Jorgensen, vice president of the state-owned company that runs Denmark’s grid.