The power of wind: The global wind energy industry's successes and failures

The global shift to renewable energy is imperative for preventing catastrophic climate change, and wind energy is playing a leading role in meeting emissions reduction targets under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Wind is one of the fastest growing, most competitive, and least harmful of the renewable energy technologies. Using an Original Institutional Economics (OIE) approach to examine real world developments, we argue that the global wind energy industry is increasingly volatile and concentrated, with implications for future growth and the trajectory for decarbonization. Moreover, OIE recognizes markets as social constructions that hold specific values, from which we argue that wind energy is operating within “first generation” electricity markets that favour conventional energy. This could further undermine the necessary investment and continued growth of wind energy, while continuing to overlook other positive social benefits wind provides. Like ecological economics, OIE remains sceptical that markets can fully capture the value of wind energy even if they internalise these costs. This has significant implications for the future trajectory of wind energy compared with both traditional and new energy technologies and underscores the limits of market mechanisms for a sustainable energy transition.