European Offshore Wind Dips in 2014

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - The rollout of offshore windfarms slowed slightly in Europe during 2014, following record growth the previous year.

Last year saw 408 new offshore wind turbines being fully grid connected, adding 1,483-megawatts (MW) to the European electricity system, a decline of 84 MW or 5.34% over 2013. Total installed capacity for Europe now stands at 8,045 MW from 74 offshore windfarms located in 11 European countries. Offshore windfarms are producing 29.6 terawatt hours (TWh) in a normal wind year, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), enough to cover 1% of the European Union's (E.U.'s) total electricity consumption.

"It is not surprising that we see a levelling-off of installations in 2014 following a record year in 2013," explained Justin Wilkes, deputy chief executive officer of the European Wind Energy Association. "The industry has seen exponential growth in the early part of this decade and this is a natural stabilising of that progress. Offshore wind will have a monumental part to play in the E.U.'s energy security drive as part of the European Energy Union but it is political determination that will help Europe unlock its offshore wind potential. The technology and financing are there but we need policymakers to come forward with stable long-term plans to push the growth of this industry and to avoid stop-go and inconsistent policy frameworks for offshore wind."

During 2014, work was carried out on 17 offshore wind farms in Europe. Four of those completed were utility-scale windfarms while one demonstration project (Methil) also went online.

The U.K.% continued its dominance of the offshore wind sector last year, accounting for over half of all new installations (54.8%), followed by Germany in second (35.7%) and Belgium (9.5%). However, the U.K.'s three year run at the top will come to an end this year, according to the EWEA, when Germany installs more offshore capacity.

"Germany is set to buck the trend this year," said Wilkes. "The U.K. has more installed offshore capacity than the rest of the world combined but this year shows that other countries in the E.U. are making serious investments in the sector. The nine financial deals closed in 2014, of which four were "billion-Euro" projects, suggest that activity will pick up substantially as of 2017 as these projects begin to hit the water."

The largest windfarms to be fully completed were RWE's Gwynt y Mor (576 MW) in North Wales, U.K., followed by Global Tech 1 (400 MW) in the German North Sea. Both will be fully commissioned this year.

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