ERR forecasts global offshore wind sector growth for 2020

According to a newly released Emerging Energy Research (EER) market study, the offshore wind sector is expected to expand over the next decade, with the total installed base expected to generate nearly 45GW in 2020. The report also revealed that the large European wind energy players are dominating the industry for now, however the sector is also set for offshore developments in North America and Asia.

Eduard Sala de Vedruna, a senior wind analyst of EER, informed that the take off of the global offshore market has been slow due to logistical and cost challenges. He however emphasized that the industry’s fast climb from 70MW to 1.5GW over the previous eight years was a positive sign.

Between 2010 and 2020, North American and Asian energy players, who are presently looking to Europe for cost benchmarking and technology, are forecasted to install almost 25 per cent of the new offshore wind farms to be built worldwide.

The study stated as well that the current offshore wind sector is controlled by European markets – led by the UK, and followed by Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark. It also reported that European utilities – such as DONG, E.ON, Iberdrola, RWE, Scottish and Southern Energy, Statkraft and Vattenfall – are well positioned to depend on their industry expertise and balance sheets to overcome the rising costs associated with offshore wind projects.

Meanwhile, EER expects Asia, to be led by China and South Korea, to tap the offshore wind market. In North America, offshore test projects, such as NaiKun in Canada and Deepwater Wind in the US, are expected to be completed by 2012 and to generate more than 6GW of capacity by 2020.