Of fshOre Wind OutlOOk
Outgrowing oil & gas Although the growth of offshore wind does not cope well with the eu’s green deAl tArgets, europe surely embraced offshore wind in 2019. Global developments indicate that this renewable source of energy has the potential of becoming the world’s leading source of energy.
A
ccording to WindEurope1, Europe installed 15.4GW of new wind energy in 2019. Three quarters of this (11.8GW) was onshore wind, and new offshore wind was 3.6GW, which can be considered a record. Europe now has 205GW of wind energy. And it accounted for 15% of all electricity consumption in Europe last year. A total of ten new offshore windfarms started production. The UK accounted for nearly half of the new capacity with 1.7GW. Then came Germany (1.1GW), Denmark (374MW), followed by Belgium (370MW). Portugal installed 8MW of floating offshore wind. Europe now has 22GW of offshore wind. The UK and Germany account for 75% of this wind. Denmark, Belgium, and the Netherlands share nearly all the rest.
Double the size
The average size of the offshore turbines installed last year was 7.8MW and the growth of the turbines continues, as a 12MW offshore wind turbine was installed on an onshore test location at Maasvlakte 2 in the port of Rotterdam. Offshore windfarms are becoming larger, too. The 1
WindEurope, Offshore Wind in Europe – Key trends and statistics 2019, February 2020.
Europe now has 22GW of offshore wind.
country
UK Germany Denmark Belgium Netherlands Sweden Finland Ireland Spain Portugal Norway France Total
NO. OF WIND FARMS connected* 40 28 14 8 6 5 3 1 2 1 1 1 110
CUMULATIVE CAPACITY (MW) 9,945 7,445 1,703 1,556 1,118 192 70.7 25.2 5 8.4 2.3 2 22,072
NO. OF TURBINES connected 2,225 1,469 559 318 365 80 19 7 2 1 1 1 5,047
net cApAcity connected in 2019 (MW) 1,760 1,111 374 370 0 0 0 0 0 8 0 0 3,623
* it includes 14 demonstrators (single turbine or announced as demonstrator by developer). Image courtesy of WindEurope.
o f f s h o r e - i n d u s t r y.eu
Outlook offshore wind.indd 37
NO. OF TURBINES connected in 2019 252 160 45 44 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 502
average size doubled from 300MW in 2010 to over 600MW today. The largest offshore windfarm at present is Hornsea 1 in the UK, with a capacity of 1.2GW. Today, most offshore windfarms are constructions on monopile foundations. However, with the launch of the new Portuguese WindFloat Atlantic floating project funded by the EU’s NER300 programme, Europe now has 45MW of floating offshore wind, and more will follow as France, UK, Norway, and Portugal are all developing new floating projects. Offshore wind costs continue to fall significantly. Last year’s auctions in France, the Netherlands, and UK delivered prices for consumers in the range of EUR 40-50/MWh. This is cheaper than building new gas, coal or nuclear power plants. 2019 also saw investment decisions in four new offshore windfarms, representing 1.4GW in capacity and EUR 6 billion in investments.
A long way behind
The European Commission says Europe needs between 230 and 450GW of offshore wind by 2050 to decarbonise the energy system and deliver the Green Deal. This requires Europe to build 7GW of new offshore wind a year by 2030, and ramp up to 18GW a year by 2050. The current level of new installations and investments is still a long way behind. WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson says, “Europe really embraced offshore wind in 2019. Auction prices showed it’s now cheaper to build offshore wind than new gas or coal plants. Several governments raised the amount they had hoped to build. This time last year, we were looking at 76GW by 2030. Now it’s 100GW. But we are currently not building enough to deliver on that, let alone the more ambitious volumes needed to deliver the Green Deal. The EU Commission says we need up to 450GW of offshore by 2050. That means 7GW new offshore wind every year by 2030, and 18GW by 2050. We built a record amount last year, but this was only 3GW. He continuous, “The bigger numbers are doable and affordable. The new EU Offshore
>>
OSI 2020 | Vo l u me 13 | i s s u e 1 | 3 7
02-03-20 11:14
