Europe's offshore wind sector pours EUR 26.3bn in new capacity in 2020

Europe committed EUR 26.3 billion (USD 31.8bn) in investments in 2020 to build 7.1 GW of new offshore wind power capacity in the coming years, said industry body WindEurope, citing own figures.

For WindEurope CEO, Giles Dickson, last year's record amount is a “huge vote of confidence in offshore wind”, which is seen as attractive for both investors and the governments.

“[T]hese investments will create jobs and growth. Every new offshore wind turbine generates EUR 15 million of economic activity. We expect the 77,000 people working in offshore wind today in Europe to be 200,000 by 2030,” Dickson said.

In 2020, Europe installed 2.9 GW of new offshore wind farms, in line with the organisation’s forecast from before the COVID-19 pandemic. This capacity is divided between nine wind farms off the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK, Germany and Portugal, which finalised the installation of a floating turbine array in its waters.

The pandemic year also saw the signing of six offshore wind power purchase agreements (PPAs) with major corporate off-takers, WindEurope said.

Europe currently has 116 offshore wind farms installed across 12 countries, but the significant amount of the capacity is concentrated in the North Sea waters. But this will soon change as more countries open their territorial waters to floating and fixed offshore installation. Among the newcomers are France, where 1 GW will be built by 2023, Poland, Greece and the three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- which are all developing projects.

Looking forward, the EU will aim to have 300 GW of offshore wind by 2050.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.21)

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