Offshore wind in Europe grew 25% in 2017
13 new offshore wind farms were completed, including the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland. The UK and Germany accounted for most of them, installing 1.7 GW and 1.3 GW respectively. Europe now has over 4,000 offshore wind turbines operating across 11 countries, making a total of 15.8 GW of installed and grid-connected capacity.
The average size of the new turbines was 5.9 MW, a 23% increase on 2016. And the average size of the new offshore wind farms was 493 MW, a 34% increase in 2016. Capacity factors are increasing too. There are projects in Europe operating already at capacity factors of 54% (Anholt 1, Denmark) or even 65% (Dudgeon, UK).
A further 11 offshore wind farms are currently under construction, and they’ll add another 2.9 GW. The project pipeline should then give us 25 GW total by 2020. But offshore wind in Europe remains heavily concentrated in a small number of countries: 98% of it is in the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
By Vlastula