More than 16 GW of floating offshore wind to be installed globally by 2030, said a new report. There are more than 1.4 GW of offshore wind auctions Planned in 2019 following a strong showing of 3.3 GW in 2018.
Quest Floating Wind Energy‘s latest report said that developers are looking at offshore wind as a means of harvesting greater volumes of wind energy — and clean energy that’s of great benefit to the environment.
Many are looking to Offshore as a more beneficial environment to harvest larger volumes of wind energy. Offshore wind farms are developed with ‘bottom-fixed’ structures in relatively shallow, near shore waters.
As 80% of the best wind resources lie in waters beyond the reach of bottom-fixed (~60m), floating wind technology is increasingly accepted as ‘the future’ of offshore wind.
Turbine capacity has more than doubled in a matter of years and accommodates the philosophy of ‘the bigger the turbine, the better’.
Developers are moving into large scale commercial projects where the economies of scale and serial production of floating units will bring down cost.
If an Offshore Wind Farm of 10 turbines or 100MW is considered commercial, it is anticipated that currently planned Wind Farms of 100 floating units and more will offer even better project economics.
The long-held argument that Floating Wind is too expensive will no longer stand if a large-scale project returns more power revenues than a comparable sized bottom-fixed.
Floating Wind and Bottom-Fixed can be complimentary and projects may very well see the combination of both, in the near future.