EU offshore wind farm installations stable in 2011

The European offshore wind energy industry in 2011. 2011 offshore wind power market: 235 new offshore wind turbines, in nine wind farm plants, worth some €2.4 billion, were fully grid connected, totalling 866 MW, 17 MW less than 2010.

246 wind turbines were erected during 2011, an average of 2.6 MW per day. 81 of these wind turbines are awaiting grid connection. Three experimental floating concepts were erected, one of which was a fullscale grid connected concept.

Offshore work began on a further five wind energy projects and preparatory onshore work on nine new wind farm projects.

Cumulative offshore wind power market

1,371 wind turbines installed and grid connected, totalling 3,813 MW in 53 wind farms in ten European countries: up from 1,136 turbines, totalling 2,946 MW in 45 wind farms in nine European countries end 2010.

75% of substructures are monopiles, 21% gravity based, jackets 2% and tripiles 2%. There are also two full scale grid-connected floating turbines.

Market outlook

Once completed, the nine offshore wind farm projects currently under construction will increase installed capacity by a further 2,375 MW, bringing cumulative capacity in Europe to 6,188 MW.

Preparatory work has started on nine other wind energy projects, these have a cumulative installed capacity of 2,910 MW.

Trends:

wind turbines, foundations, water depth and distance to shore

The average offshore wind farm size in 2011 was almost 200MW up 29% (45MW) on the previous year.

Average water depth in 2011 reached 22.8m, substantially more than last year.

Average distance to shore decreased, being 23.4km in 2011 compared to 27.1km the previous year. However, the distance of wind farms under construction is 33.2km.

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