Forecasting accuracy of wind power technology diffusion models across countries

Wind power technology is analyzed in terms of diffusion, with incentive effects introduced as exogenous dynamics in the Generalized Bass Model (GBM) framework. Estimates and short-term forecasts of the life-cycles of wind power are provided for the US and Europe, as they have similar geographic areas, as well as for some leading European countries. GBMs have the best performance in model selection, and are ranked first in terms of forecast accuracy over a set of different accuracy measures and forecasting horizons, relative to the Standard Bass, Logistic, and Gompertz models. (C) 2010 International Institute of Forecasters. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.