The United States passed Germany in 2008 to become the world's largest producer of wind power, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The group says that the United States and China showed the strongest growth in wind energy within a worldwide market that saw wind energy surge by 28.8 percent, with global power capacity up to 120.8 gigawatts by the end of 2008. "There is a huge and growing global demand for emissions-free wind power, which can be installed quickly, virtually everywhere in the world," says Steve Sawyer, the GWEC's secretary general. "Wind is the only power-generation technology that can deliver the necessary cuts in carbon dioxide." The United States accounted for 8.25 gigawatts of the total capacity, increasing its capacity by 50 percent to overtake Germany with a total of 25.1 gigawatts of power generation capacity. China doubled its capacity by adding 6.3 gigawatts to reach a total capacity of 12.2 gigawatts. The GWEC says at that rate, China will reach second place worldwide in 2010.