The coronavirus crisis will cause global wind energy additions in 2020 to decline by 4.9 Gigawatt (GW) compared to previous projections, research and consultancy firm Wood Mackenzie said, adding due to the pandemic and other market changes total forecast wind additions for 2020 is now expected to be 73 GW.

"The impact of the coronavirus is top of mind for the global wind industry and embodies a crisis unlike anything the market has even seen. The state of the pandemic is evolving on an hourly basis, resulting in a highly reactionary environment," said Dan Shreve, Wood Mackenzie Head of Global Wind Energy Research.

He added industry stakeholders are continually adapting business operations to balance worker safety with the needs of their clients, all while complying with dynamic government containment measures.

The potential impact on global installations remains most significant in China and the US, where wind-focused policy deadlines were expected to deliver record volumes. European Tier I wind energy markets, such as Spain, France and Italy, could be hit even harder on a percentage basis due to more aggressive lockdown measures inhibiting worker mobility.

The wind energy supply chain is truly global in nature, with a higher level of diversification than solar, and thus the impact of China’s coronavirus shutdown on Western markets has been managed by leveraging established supply lines from India, Brazil, Mexico and other major production hubs.