50% Increase in European Offshore Wind Power in 2012

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Even though national and regional economies are sputtering across the globe, offshore wind power installations in Europe increased fifty percent
in the first half of 2012 compared with the first half of 2011.

Over 130 offshore wind turbines were installed in 2012, and 160 more are constructed and waiting for grid connections. So far, those connections have been delayed by weather, but if not for that, the total number of new megawatts in operation might be 647 for this year.

The total number of megawatts of offshore wind capacity by the end of June was over 4,300. An additional 3,700 MW of offshore wind capacity may be built in the near future there.

The European Wind Energy Association has produced some startling numbers in its report from last year on the market outlook for its offshore wind capacity. The report says Europe is making progress toward the goal of 40 GW of capacity by 2020. Additionally, it stated 150 GW of operational offshore wind is possible by 2030.

The report uses 141 GW as the figure associated with offshore wind capacity for Europe — that is offshore wind power capacity planned, already consented, under construction, and online. 114 GW is in the planning stage. The UK has about 42 GW planned, and Germany has over 21 GW in the same category — these are the leading nations. In just eight years, it is expected eighteen European countries will have offshore wind power in operation.

There are many jobs associated with renewable energy projects in Europe.  Over two million green jobs could be created if the 2020 renewable energy goals are met.

Image Credit: Public Domain, Wiki Commons

Jake Richardson (150 Posts)

Hello, I have been writing online for some time, and enjoy the outdoors.


  • Dave2020

    “No sense” is your value judgement Bob.

    The German decision to phase out existing nuclear, while it is still a useful low carbon asset, makes no sense.

    The effects of Chernobyl in my back yard only faded into history last month:-

    http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2012/03/22/sheep-restrictions-lifted-in-wales-nearly-26-years-after-chernobyl-91466-30599439/

    The Welsh government decision to support new nuclear makes no sense either. It is hideously expensive and by the time it’s built there should be no need for it. But opposition on the grounds of “it’s too dangerous” is an emotional, not a rational judgement.

    Alan Whitehead’s ‘insider’ blog sums up the market mayhem nicely:-

    https://alansenergyblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/16/the-edf-strike-price-you-heard-it-here-first/

    My design introduces energy storage capacity in increments of say 10MWh with each new off-shore wind turbine that you make. None of it would “sit around while one waits for extra power to come on line.” Now who’s being silly? There is excess power that needs to be time-shifted right now. The cost of this storage could be zero, relative to the orthodox designs that are being deployed for Round 3. (UK off-shore wind)

    You’d never have to build any more pumped storage (in the wrong location) or less efficient and more expensive grid scale battery storage, once you’ve installed five or six thousand of these puppies, gradually over the coming years. What’s not to like about that?

    I can understand, from your standpoint, the (incidental) design imperative to change from HAWTs to VAWTs is upsetting, but you shouldn’t let emotion get in the way, because the storage is a no-brainer. HAWTs do a great job in the Welsh hills. I think they look great too, but ‘horses for courses’ Bob. They are (functionally) out of place in the marine environment.

    Gas peaking plant exacts a heavy price in CO2 and from the consumers pocket. To make the investment attractive to the greedy incumbents, the UK government plans to ‘grandfather’ both the permitted emissions and the ROI until 2045. Sorry Bob – that’s not just silly, it’s insane. The politician’s love affair with neoliberal market theory is causing mayhem, way beyond the global financial meltdown. See Alan’s blog for the full, funny saga. (funny, as in peculiar and farce)

    Introduce even a modest level of dispatchable renewable electricity and that peaking plant would be lying idle for ever! That’s great for emissions, but not so good for profits.

    Steady on – you can’t change the meaning of the word ‘dispatchable’ to suit your case. Nuclear can’t be ramped up or down in a few hours, never mind minutes. That’s why UK pumped storage was built in the first place.

    “I’m sure a lot of factories would consider adding a night shift.  I’m sure a lot of households would gladly change their shower time, laundry time, dish washing,” You may be “sure” Captivation, but the guys designing the Smart Grids of the future know that cultural/psychological inertia is a real hard nut to crack. DSM is problematic and expensive. Supply side solutions are cheaper and far more effective. Prevention is better than cure. Elimination beats mitigation hands down. BTW – markets don’t work by giving stuff away, there’s no profit in it!

  • Dave2020

    Anne,

    True, variable is the better term. However, high pressure systems do occasionally affect the whole of the UK. I don’t think you should ever say “never.”

    Germany has already experienced negative wholesale prices when ideal wind speeds cover the whole country. Peak solar affects their market too. They know that much more energy storage is needed to balance the grid better.

    “23 offshore wind projects and 10 hydro pumped storage projects are being planned.  However, the report also reveals that energy firms are planning 29 gas-fired power plants and a further 17 coal-fired facilities.” Silly to close down their nuclear too early.

    http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2169691/gas-offshore-wind-winners-germany-plans-eur60bn-energy-revamp

    The UK has plans for lots of gas peaking plant and very little pumped storage. That’s really dumb – no imagination, no forward planning.

    We have interconnectors to France, Holland and Northern Ireland. One link to Norway will only have a 1.4GW capacity and cost over £1bn. A second, NorthConnect, may be 2GW. These are both “under study”. They won’t transmit the likely surplus. 

    http://www.refabrica.com/einter/?page_id=157

    Dimitar is wrong. The Irish plan to sell their wind power to us and when there are a lot more turbines built everyone will be trying to sell, so the market price collapses.

    http://alansenergyblog.wordpress.com/2012/07/17/that-onshore-offshore-uk-not-uk-plan-in-full/

    To my mind, the best solution is energy storage before generator. This is an integral part of my floating wind/wave design, so the electricity is then dispatchable.

    Yes Bob, I understand what capacity factor is. The best UK site in the Shetlands delivers 60%. That means you’ll have a surplus more often doesn’t it. What do you do with it? You only have to shift electricity dispatch by a few hours – the perfect supply side solution.

    France, for one, can’t dial back their nuclear and buy the UK’s cheap wind, however much they may want to.

    • Bob_Wallace

      “Silly” is a value judgement. The Germans decided that they value a world where a nuclear reactor does not go sour in their backyard. They have up close and personal experience with that happens.

      Storage will be built as economics provides for it. It makes no sense to build a bunch of storage and have it sit around while one waits for extra power to come on line. In fact, it probably will make sense to curtail the top 10% or so of wind before storage makes economic sense. Not until there’s significant power to shift will investment in storage be a wise decision.

      And it’s looking much more likely that storage will be large scale batteries. These puppies are modular and can be brought on line as soon as there’s adequate power to be time-shifted.

      I’m not sure that gas peakers are not a good grid solution (aside from the carbon problem). They are relatively cheap to build, cheaper than storage at the time. And significantly easier to site than pump-up storage. From a utility standpoint they could pay for themselves with a few year’s use and then sit idle as deep backup.

      (The French do use their nuclear as dispatchable power. That’s why their realized nuclear capacity is so low. They shut down reactors when not needed.)

  • Dave2020

    “The UK has about 42 GW planned.”

    In summer, UK electricity demand averages 30GW. For five hours overnight it drops to around 24GW and peaks in the day at less than 40GW.

    Theoretically you could run the entire grid on off-shore wind power alone, if it wasn’t for an inconvenient little thing called intermittency.

    When the wind is producing 40GW at night, what would you do with the surplus? It would take a hell of a lot of EV batteries to absorb all that power. And don’t forget, you can’t turn off your nuclear power plants, or fossil fuel generators with CCS.

    In the UK, ‘constraint payments’ (i.e. you still get paid when we have to tell you to switch your turbine off) have reach £324m a year.

    http://www.utilityweek.co.uk/news/news_story.asp?id=197164&title=Decc+aims+to+curb+constraint+gaming+with+new+licence+conditions

    The headline figures used by the industry are misleading and there’s the opposite problem when the winds calm down. These wikipedia entries are at least honest about it:-

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_Kingdom

    “The UK is estimated to have over a third of Europe’s total offshore wind resource, which is equivalent to three times the electricity needs of the nation at current rates of electricity consumption, although this is only at times when the wind blows.” (to state the obvious)

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_Kingdom

    “As of September 2010, the installed nameplate capacity of wind power in the United Kingdom was over 5GW, representing a real terms figure of approximately 1.5GW.”

    • Dimitar Mirchev

      “When the wind is producing 40GW at night, what would you do with the surplus? ”

      Sell it to the continend and Ireland or store it in Norway’s pump hydro after you build enough Interconnectors

      • Bob_Wallace

        There are already transmission lines linking the UK and continental Europe.  Other European countries have dispatchable generation, if cheap wind is flowing from the UK the other generation can be dialed back.

        And – we are likely to see large scale storage arriving on the grid over the next few years.  Then what will all you “but wind and solar are intermittent” worriers  worry about?

        (BTW Dave, are you aware that “30% capacity” does not mean that the wind blows only 30% of the time?  And are you aware that latest tech wind is around 50% capacity?)

    • Anne

       Dave,

      For one thing, wrt wind power it is more accurate to talk of ‘variability’, instead of ‘intermittency’. A single turbine can come to a standstill in an extremely low wind situation, over an entire country, this never happens. Wind is not binary, on/off.

      In reality, 42 GW of installed capacity will never produce 40 GW. The 42 GW figure is merely the sum of nameplate capacities of all wind turbines in and around the UK. Not all wind turbines will deliver this capacity simultaneously. From real time wind power in Spain, provided by REE, you can see that over a country the size of Spain, it rarely reaches 65%.
      Link: https://demanda.ree.es/eolica.html

      I expect 40 GW of offshore wind to rarely exceed 25 GW of instantaneous power. That is because the weather is never the same over a region the size of Britain.

      The UK has links with Norway, France and The Netherlands, so a surplus can be exported. The HVDC network will be expanded in the coming decades to exploit the positive effect on variability of geographic spreading.

      This 42 GW will take, I guess, 20 years to install. There will (hopefully) be more electric cars to soak up these peaks at night. Grid storage (batteries) will also become more common. The grid will look vastly different from today, so peak generation of 25 GW will be something the grid operators are perfectly able to handle. I think it is way too early to be worrying about this.

      • Bill_Woods

         ”A single turbine can come to a standstill in an extremely low wind situation, over an entire country, this never happens.”

        Close enough. Here’s the UK’s electricity supply for the last few months, with half-hour resolution.
        http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html
        The minimum in the last few months was 8 MW — about 0.1% of capacity, and 0.03% of total demand. That’s extreme, but there are lots of times wind power is less than 5% of capacity.
        And the UK already has wind farms across the length and breadth of the country, so adding more won’t reduce the intermittency.

    • Captivation

      What to do with the night power surplus?  Offer free power at night.  I’m sure a lot of factories would consider adding a night shift.  I’m sure a lot of households would gladly change their shower time, laundry time, dish washing, etc.  The surplus will be quickly be used up, and then prices can be gradually raised.