According to official figures released by the China Wind Energy Association China consolidated its position as the world wind power leader in both new and cumulative installed capacities in 2011. The CWEA says that 17.6 GW of wind turbines were installed in China in 2011.

Although this was down 6.9% from the previous year, it took China’s cumulative wind power installed capacity to 62.4GW, up by 39.4% year on year by the end of 2011.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, the United States, which previously led the world in installed wind power capacity, had 6.8 GW of wind turbines installed in 2011, making its cumulative total 46.9 GW by the end of the year.

The top five Chinese provincial regions for newly installed wind turbines were Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Shandong, Ningxia and Liaoning which added 3.7 GW, 2.1 GW, 1.9 GW, 1.7 GW and 1.2 GW respectively. The Inner Mongolia region is now top of China’s internal list with 17.6 GW total installed capacity.