Duck sauce all around! China surpasses USA as #1 for installed wind energy capacity

China is doing infrastructure in a big way these days, and they have just passed another milestone in the wind energy sector. The Global Wind Energy Consortium reports that at the end of 2010, China had 42.5 GW of installed wind capacity (equivalent to about 17,000 turbines each rated at 2.5 MW), compared to 40.3 GW for the US. China got to the number one position by posting two banner years in 2009 and 2010, building 13.8 and 16.5 GW in the two years respectively. The combined 30.3 GW over two years is more than the US had installed cumulatively at the end of 2008 (25.2 GW). The US is still well ahead of #3 Germany, which had a total of 27.3 GW installed at the end of 2010.