Page 43: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (July 2020)

offsHore wind

Offshore Wind: the trillion Dollar Business

Photo: SAL Heavy Lift Photo: Jan De Nul

The WER report estimates global offshore wind potential to ever before? WER’s report points to a combination of factors be technically capable of supporting more than 120,000 GW helping to grow offshore wind’s role in the word energy mix. of electricity production capacity (equating to approximately The simplest but most important reason for growth is that off- 420,000 TWh), which is more than 20 times greater than cur- shore wind has made great strides over recent years to become rent world demand. increasingly cost competitive compared to other energy sourc-

By 2040, WER forecasts offshore wind capacity will in- es, including fossil fuels. In the years ahead this momentum crease to somewhere in the range of 340 GW-560 GW, led by will only build as costs continue to fall.

Europe and China, with newer entrants the U.S., Japan, South The growing volume and size of offshore wind projects,

Korean and India among top markets. The report identifies along with improving supply chain competencies larger, more some 500 GW of projects and development zones currently efficient turbines (the current largest is 14 megawatts (MW)), in the planning and development stages, mainly coming from and the utilization of offshore transmission substation hubs

Europe, Asia and the U.S. Details for each project are laid out have all helped to reduce offshore wind’s levelized cost of en- in the report as well as in a corresponding online database ergy (LCOE). According to WER, LCOE has declined from (http://www.worldenergyreports.com/wind-db). a global average $170/MWh in 2010 to strike prices of $60/

MWh to $110/MWh in 2016 to 2018 European and U.S. auc-

LOWeR cOStS tions. Recent prices have been seen as low as $47/MWh in

Offshore wind farms are not new; they have been around for recent European auctions. WER says declining LCOE is al- decades. So why is offshore wind taking off faster now than lowing offshore wind to compete with fossil fuel projects in www.marinelink.com 43