We're adding more than 50GW/year now, which should easily put us over the amount of nameplate capacity nuclear installed worldwide. Within the next decade, wind will surpass Nuclear in actual twh of generation as well.
If you assume nuclear is about 400GW installed worldwide and a 90% capacity factor, then wind would only need 900GW installed to match output at a 40% capacity factor. NREL just realeased data that shows potential capacity factors of 60% on over 2 million acres in the US:
Comparing wind and nuclear is not an apples-to-apples comparison. To make a valid comparison, you would need to compare wind + some kind of back up such as natural gas (or possibly some nuclear).
There is a premium for reliable sources of electricity generation since you have to have reliable generation to avoid blackouts.
Wind and solar can capture more $fiat per MWh if they purchase Tesla stationary storage and can deliver firm dispatchability (that premium for reliable generation you mention).
Natural gas will make a fine stopgap until we have enough battery storage.
I am not aware of any market where generators are getting a premium for being dispatchable. I would be very interested in knowing what the value is.
Certainly some markets have prices that vary through the day to give generators the incentive to generate when power is needed most if they have that flexibility.
The UK has (8,516 + 5,098) ~= 13.6GW of wind capacity[1].
They seem to have reported the UK offshore amount ("8,179MW") as the global capacity:
The global offshore wind market experienced a record year by installed capacity in 2015. Consultancy FTI Intelligence has projected installed generation capacity to nearly quadruple to 31,200 megawatts in 2019 from 8,179 megawatts in 2014.
http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Global-Cumula...
We're adding more than 50GW/year now, which should easily put us over the amount of nameplate capacity nuclear installed worldwide. Within the next decade, wind will surpass Nuclear in actual twh of generation as well.
If you assume nuclear is about 400GW installed worldwide and a 90% capacity factor, then wind would only need 900GW installed to match output at a 40% capacity factor. NREL just realeased data that shows potential capacity factors of 60% on over 2 million acres in the US:
http://apps2.eere.energy.gov/wind/windexchange/windmaps/reso...
Wind and solar are steadily eating world power generation.