Chinese dominance of the fast-expanding global offshore wind build-out deepened last year with the Asian superpower installing over two-thirds of the new plant brought into operation around the world, according to a new report from World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO).
Out of the 9.4GW sea-based projects completed in 2022 – a deployment down markedly on the 15.7GW wired-in the year before but nearly double 2020’s total – some 70% (6.8GW) was off China, with the worldwide fleet expanding to 57.6GW, WFO recorded in its Global Offshore Wind 2022.
Despite the construction slow-down, forecast figures included in the report, supplied by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), point to global offshore wind installations nonetheless being on track to grow ten-fold in the next decade to reach 519GW by 2035.
“Countries increasingly see the offshore wind sector as a key facilitator of their long-term climate goals, as they set new targets and increase existing ones. [Our] forecast for offshore capacity continues to rise as mature markets in Europe plan more projects via auctions and new markets in Asia and the Americas establish regulatory frameworks for offshore wind,” said BNEF.
“As floating wind matures and hydrogen provides another potential source of demand, the opportunity for offshore wind is only growing.”
Forty-two new offshore wind farms came into operation in 2022, 29 in China, five in Vietnam, two in Japan, and one each in the UK, South Korea, Italy, France, Spain, and Germany. China now has 25.6GW turning at sea – nearly double second-place UK (13.6GW), translating to 44% of the world’s operational offshore wind capacity.
China’s expansion plans are foreseen continuing apace with a total capacity of 3.7GW currently under-construction. The UK is second with 2.8GW underway, followed by Taiwan (2.5GW), the Netherlands (2.3GW), France (1GW), and Germany (250MW).
“It is excellent to see that important new offshore wind markets such as France and Japan have successfully installed their first commercial-scale offshore wind farms. We will see many more countries from around the world join the offshore wind industry over the next few years,” said WFO managing director Gunnar Herzig.
Installations in international waters are forecast to reach 18.4GW in 2023, with China accounting for “over half” of this total, and then climb to 45.7GW by the end of the decade. This growth, said BNEF, will be fuelled by “mature” markets including China, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, with “emerging” plays such as the US, Taiwan, France, South Korea, Poland and Japan, expected to make “significant contributions”.
Despite the strongly positive growth forecasts, Herzig flagged that current construction rates remained off-pace to serve many nations’ energy transition strategies. “The global offshore wind build-out must be accelerated significantly to reach the ambitious 2030 targets which many countries have set for themselves,” he said.
Between 2031 and 2035, BNEF expects offshore wind installations to run at 45.6GW a year, peaking at 48.2GW, with annual additions some four times what they were in 2022. By 2035, 22 markets around the world would have national fleets larger than 1GW, it noted.
“Reaching these annual volumes will mean expanding the supply chain – including manufacturing capacity, installation vessels and equipment – and addressing skills shortages among workers,” said BNEF. “Distributing supply chain resources effectively between regions will be integral to the globalisation of the industry.
“The offshore wind sector must strike a balance between satisfying local content requirements while maintaining supply chain resilience and keeping costs down.”
An Internaional Energy Agency report in 2019 calculated “close-to-shore” offshore wind sites alone could provide almost 36 ,000 TWh of electricity a year – nearly equal to total global power demand projected for 2040.
Consultancy DNV calculates floating projects currently make up over 15% of the total offshore wind deployment in the pipeline for switch-on by mid-century, equal to some 264GW of the 1,750GW slated to be installed.
