There was a big 19% increase in wind generation in Europe last year.
From Bloomberg by Jeremy Hodges and Jess Shankleman
- WindEurope sees French turbine orders passing U.K., Germany
- Offshore wind investments to recover after contracting in 2017
Such has been the slow progress with early projects that floating offshore wind is likely to leapfrog them
France has made a significant commitment to offshore windfarms but still hasn’t built any, however that situation is changing as floating offshore wind projects come to the fore
France has made a significant commitment to offshore windfarms but still hasn’t built any, however that situation is changing as floating offshore wind projects come to the fore
Construction off the French coast is expected to ramp up from 2020 and turn the country in the fourth-biggest offshore wind generator with about 4.3 gigawatts capacity by 2030, according to the Brussels-based WindEurope industry group.
Macron has repeatedly promised to turn France into a green energy leader and reduce the country’s reliance on nuclear power.
He’s trying to cut through bureaucratic red tape that has delayed offshore wind projects tendered in 2012.
His government said in November that it aims to trim offshore project development to less than seven years from more than a decade.
The U.K. and Germany currently lead in offshore wind installations with 1,753 and 1,168 installed turbines respectively, according to a WindEurope report on Tuesday.
98% of offshore wind capacity comes from the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Investment in new offshore wind farms is expected to recover marginally in 2018 after a sharp drop last year, according to the industry group, which estimates more than 9 billion euros ($11.2 billion) of projects could reach financial close this year.
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy currently accounts for 51% of new installed capacity.
Last year investment in new European offshore wind projects dropped almost three-fifths, to 7.5 billion euros, after countries cut subsidies and technology costs fell.
Conversely, the refinancing of existing projects jumped 80 percent to 4.6 billion euros.
“Project sponsors have used the favorable market conditions and increased liquidity to restructure their project debt,” WindEurope reported.
By 2020 WindEurope expects European offshore wind capacity of 25 gigawatts.
The market will continue to concentrate around the North Sea, where the U.K. will connect 3.3 gigawatts of new offshore capacity by 2020.
Fifteen miles off Scotland's North Sea coast is a new wind farm,
with the world's first floating turbines.
Links :
- Offshore Wind : France plans to play catch-up as floaters leapfrog first round projects
- Euractiv : Britain ahead of EU pack in low-carbon transition / Winds of change: Seven key statistics of Europe’s booming offshore wind industry
- Reuters : France sets out ten-point plan to double wind power capacity by 2023
- Fortune : Europe's Wind Power Industry Is Blowing Up Offshore
- The Guardian : UK built half of Europe's offshore wind power in 2017
- e360 : After an Uncertain Start, U.S. Offshore Wind Is Powering Up
- GeoGarage blog :There's enough wind energy over the oceans to ... / Offshore wind power cheaper than new nuclear / North Sea wind power hub: A giant wind farm to ... / Wind power takes to the seas / The new Viking invasion: How Denmark's offshore wind giant / Statoil to build the world's first floating wind farm ... / Wind turbines policy is all at sea / Image of the week : the London array, the world's largest wind farm ... / Offshore wind cable plan highlights grid bottleneck
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