Data

Wind energy capacity

See all data and research on:

About this data

Wind energy capacity
Measured in gigawatts.
Source
International Renewable Energy Agency (2023) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
December 12, 2023
Next expected update
December 2024
Date range
2000–2022
Unit
gigawatts

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

IRENA publishes detailed statistics on renewable energy capacity, power generation and renewable energy balances. This data is collected directly from members using the IRENA Renewable Energy Statistics questionnaire and is also supplemented by desk research where official statistics are not available.

Some technologies include others, following this schema:

Total renewable energy

  1. Hydropower 1.1 Renewable hydropower 1.2 Pumped storage *
  2. Marine
  3. Wind 3.1 Onshore wind energy 3.2 Offshore wind energy
  4. Solar 4.1 Solar photovoltaic 4.2 Concentrated solar power
  5. Bioenergy 5.1 Solid biofuels 5.1.1 Bagasse 5.1.2 Renewable municipal waste 5.1.3 Other solid biofuels 5.2 Liquid biofuels 5.3 Biogas
  6. Geothermal
  • Pumped storage is included under the "Hydropower" category but not in the "Total renewable energy". Generation from mixed plants is split between hydropower and pumped storage as appropriate.
Retrieved on
December 12, 2023
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
IRENA (2023), Renewable power generation costs in 2022, International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.

How we process data at Our World in Data

All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

Read about our data pipeline

Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
  • All data, visualizations, and code produced by Our World in Data are completely open access under the Creative Commons BY license. You have the permission to use, distribute, and reproduce these in any medium, provided the source and authors are credited.

Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Wind energy capacity”, part of the following publication: Hannah Ritchie, Pablo Rosado and Max Roser (2023) - “Energy”. Data adapted from International Renewable Energy Agency. Retrieved from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-installed-wind-energy-capacity-gigawatts [online resource]
How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

International Renewable Energy Agency (2023) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

International Renewable Energy Agency (2023) – processed by Our World in Data. “Wind energy capacity” [dataset]. International Renewable Energy Agency, “Renewable Electricity Capacity and Generation Statistics” [original data]. Retrieved October 15, 2024 from https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/cumulative-installed-wind-energy-capacity-gigawatts