Asia will take the lead in setting up offshore wind energy capacity by 2050, a recent report by Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said.
In its “Global Offshore Wind Report 2021,” GWEC said that a total of 2,000 GW of offshore wind energy capacity would be required to be set up by 2050, if global carbon-neutrality were to be achieved. This would also create the pathway for a sustainable “Paris-compliant” regime.
Currently, global installed offshore wind capacity stands about 35 GW, which is less than 0.5 per cent of the world’s total installed power generation capacity, from all sources. At the moment, Europe and China are leaders in terms of operational offshore wind capacity.
Very interestingly, the World Bank has identified 71,000 GW of global offshore wind energy potential. This, for a frame of reference, is around ten times the world’s current electricity generation capacity.
On its part, GWEC has consolidated territorial maps for fixed and floating offshore wind energy potential in over 100 countries. These illustrate the potential of offshore wind, as an indigenous and sustainable resource distributed in every region of the world, from the Carribean to East Asia to sub-Saharan Africa.
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The aforementioned target of 2,000 GW by 2050 would largely come from Asia; this region, led by China, is expected to house 40 per cent of the targeted figure. Europe with a 32 per cent share will be followed by North America with 18 per cent, as the next rung of important regions. Latin America (6 per cent), Pacific region (4 per cent) and Middle East (2 per cent), will be next in importance.
In 2020, the global offshore wind capacity addition stood at 6.1 GW, accounting for 7 per cent of total wind energy installations. Offshore wind energy capacity addition is expected to grow to 80 GW by 2030. From 2021 onwards, offshore wind energy needs to account for over 20 per cent of the total wind energy capacity addition, the report observed.
Performance in 2020
In 2020, as mentioned earlier, the world saw 6.1 GW of new offshore wind capacity additions, as against 6.2 GW in 2020. For the third year in a row, China led the market. In 2021, the Asian country added 3 GW of grid-connected offshore wind capacity. The Netherlands added 1.5 GW, followed by Belgium with 706 mw. UK and Germany added 483 mw and 237 mw, earning them the fourth and fifth rank, respectively.
