With offshore wind capacity set to increase by more than six-fold by 2040, Europe will be the powerhouse behind the strong growth of this sector in the next twenty years, despite significant growth in China, predicts a report by the International Energy Agency (IEA) published on 25 October.
According to this document, the European Union's offshore wind capacity is expected to increase from nearly 20 gigawatts (GW) to about 130 GW by 2040. If the EU meets its carbon neutrality targets, this capacity could even reach 180 GW, making offshore wind the largest source of electricity in Europe and enabling the EU to maintain its leadership in this sector.
In order to reduce the country's particularly problematic air pollution, China's capacity should increase from 4 GW to 110 GW by 2040 and could even exceed 170 GW, driven by global sustainable energy targets.
These predictions lead the IEA to conclude that global offshore wind energy capacity may increase 15-fold and attract about 1 trillion dollars of cumulative investment by 2040.
For Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope, “they are spot on in showing how falling costs and technology development have made offshore wind an obvious choice for countries as a source of energy”. And as a reminder: “The EU Commission's eight scenarios for 2050 envisage between 230 and 450 GW by 2050, and that’s what we’re aiming for”.
While stressing that offshore wind currently provides only 0.3% of global power generation, Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the IEA, stressed the vast potential of offshore wind, with more and more of that potential “coming within reach”. “But much work remains to be done by governments and industry for it to become a mainstay of clean energy transitions”, he said.
To download the report: https://bit.ly/2Js9kKF (Original version in French by Damien Genicot)