Industry completes record installations and is poised for further rapid expansion after growing by a third last year
Europe's offshore wind industry delivered record levels of installations last year, according to new figures that show that on average every working day during 2012 saw an offshore turbine erected.
Across the continent, 293 giant new turbines were installed, bringing the total of grid-connected offshore turbines in Europe to 1,662 operating across 55 wind farms, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says in a new report.
The latest round of installations resulted in 1.16GW of new capacity being added during 2012, an increase of 33 per cent on 2011 installations that takes total installed capacity to just shy of 5GW.
The UK continued to dominate the market with nearly 60 per cent of Europe's total offshore wind capacity, followed by Denmark with 18 per cent, Belgium with eight per cent and Germany with six per cent.
Investment is expected to continue through 2013 and 2014, with 14 offshore wind farms already under construction, providing a further 3.3GW of potential capacity. The second half of the decade should also result in another wave of development as the UK's planned Round 3 deeper water projects start to come online.
However, the EWEA argued the industry could be expanding faster still if governments made good on their offshore wind targets and worked to provide a more stable policy environment.
For example, France is still yet to install a single offshore turbine despite having high profile plans in place to build a fleet of new wind farms, while grid connection issues have resulted in Germany's timetable to install 792MW of capacity slipping.
"Offshore wind power is growing solidly", said EWEA policy director Justin Wilkes. "But solid installation figures do not alter the fact that the wind industry is being hit by political and regulatory instability, the economic crisis, the higher cost of capital and austerity.
"Europe is a world leader in offshore wind energy and could be creating even more jobs if governments gave greater policy certainty to investors, and resolved grid connection problems."
BY LE MY
