2013 To Be Record Year for Offshore Wind

2013 To Be Record Year for Offshore Wind  J. Matthew Roney http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2013/update117	Earth Policy Release Plan B Update October 30, 2013
Offshore wind power installations are on track to hit a seventh consecutive annual record in 2013. Developers added 1,080 megawatts of generating capacity in the first half of the year, expanding the world total by 20 percent in just six months. Fifteen countries host some 6,500 megawatts of offshore wind capacity. Before the year is out, the world total should exceed 7,100 megawatts. Although still small compared with the roughly 300,000 megawatts of land-based wind power, offshore capacity is growing at close to 40 percent a year. In 1991, Denmark installed the world’s first offshore wind farm, a 5-megawatt project in the Baltic Sea. The country’s offshore wind sector has since alternated between lulls and bursts of activity. Since 2008, Denmark’s offshore wind capacity has more than tripled, topping 1,200 megawatts by mid-2013. Over 350 megawatts of offshore wind power were plugged into the grid in the first half of the year—all of it to complete the 400-megawatt Anholt project, which is expected to meet 4 percent of Danish electricity needs. Denmark already gets more than 30 percent of its electricity from wind—onshore and offshore—and aims to increase that share to 50 percent by 2020. At about one third the size of New York State, Denmark has the world’s highest wind power capacity per square mile, so it will rely mostly on offshore expansion to hit the 2020 target. Denmark was first to put wind turbines in the sea, but today it ranks a distant second to the United Kingdom in total offshore wind generating capacity. More than 500 megawatts of new offshore wind power went online in U.K. waters in the first half of 2013, bringing the country’s grand total to over 3,400 megawatts—enough to power more than 2 million U.K. homes. The bulk of this new offshore capacity went to completing the 630-megawatt first phase of the London Array, now the world’s largest offshore wind farm. It overtook another U.K. project, the 500-megawatt Greater Gabbard wind farm, which was finished in 2012. In all, the United Kingdom has some 12,000 megawatts of offshore wind capacity under construction or in earlier development stages. Belgium’s offshore wind capacity grew 20 percent to 450 megawatts in the first half of 2013, placing it third in the world rankings. Germany reached 380 megawatts of offshore wind and will have at least 520 megawatts by year’s end. Beyond this, the German offshore industry expects another 1,000 megawatts will connect to the grid in both 2014 and 2015. Countries in Asia are starting to make offshore wind power more than just a European affair. China, for example, brought its first offshore wind farm online in 2010. Since then, China has quickly climbed to fourth in the world, with 390 megawatts. The official goal is for 5,000 megawatts of wind capacity in Chinese waters by 2015, ballooning to 30,000 megawatts by 2020.