Experts Forecast Increased Offshore Wind Capacity

The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), during its recently concluded Global Energy and Utilities Digital Week, which held virtually, predicted that additional 205GW of offshore wind capacity would be installed by 2030, to complement the over 650GW of wind capacity already installed at the end of 2019.

GWEC forecasted that the project would gulp $16 trillion, with the hope that physical incentives, structures, government and technologies, will make it happen in the next 20 years.

The Council therefore called on governments globally to look at energy efficiency and infrastructure in the next 10 years and treat them as a primary energy resource alongside other energy sources in the global economy.

Policy and Operations Director for the Global Wind Energy Council, Joyce Lee, said more than 80GW of additional wind energy capacity would be expected to come online in 2021.

Speaking during Global Energy and Utilities Digital Week, Lee said due to a delay with projects in 2020 as a result of the CCOVI-19 pandemic, a record year is expected in 2021 in terms of new wind capacity coming online.

“Due to COVID–19, we have downgraded our projection for 2020, which was supposed to be a record year, as a result of disruption to supply chains, delays in construction, which we estimate a downgrade of 19 per cent mostly in onshore wind.

“Covid-19 has led to commissioning deadlines for wind projects being extended in prominent markets such as the US, India, Germany and France in 2020, and because of that we expect new installations to bounce back next year,” Lee further said.

Lee revealed, citing GWEC’s latest data, that by the end of 2019, 651GW of wind power was installed world-wide. Onshore wind accounted for the vast majority of this, 621GW, with offshore wind installations accounting for 29.1GW.