Sep 14, 2012 - In a week quite eventful for the offshore wind industry, Dong Energy unveils plans to put billions of euros in the sector, Scotland proposes offshore wind subsidies and GWEC reports global offshore wind capacity of 4.62 GW as of June 30.
Christina Grumstrup Soerensen, senior vice president at Danish utility Dong Energy, told Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) earlier this week that the company was to invest several billions of euro into the German offshore wind sector to become a market leader in the country.
At present, Dong Energy is building the EUR-1.25-billion (USD 1.6bn) Riffgrund I offshore wind farm. Together with Riffgrund II and other projects, the company is targeting a capacity of some 1 GW in German territorial waters.
Scotland eyes ROCs for offshore wind, major Irish onshore wind complex may get UK link
On Thursday Scotland’s Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said the government had proposed a new band for offshore wind in deep waters in its Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) programme. "Scotland has huge offshore wind potential, but a lot of that resource is in far greater water depths than elsewhere in the UK, which is challenging and costly to exploit," Ewing said.
In a recently completed review of the ROC scheme, the government also approved a 10% cut in support for onshore wind farms, which will now get 0.9 ROCs per MWh. To provide certainty to the industry, Scotland has fixed that value until 2017.
After mentioning onshore wind we cannot miss one of the most impressive, in terms of capacity, developments in Britain. On Thursday, Irish firm Mainstream Renewable Power unveiled a memorandum of understanding with two grid operators to carry out a pre-feasibility study for a 5-GW transmission system. The link is intended to fetch power to the UK from Mainstream’s proposed 5-GW Energy Bridge wind park in Ireland.
Global offshore wind capacity hits 4.62 GW
Offshore wind farms around the globe reached a combined capacity of 4.62 GW at the end of June, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said Tuesday, noting that more than 90% of the total was located in European waters. Two demonstration projects off China's east coast accounted for most of the remaining capacity, or total of 258.4 MW.
GWEC said that according to more ambitious forecasts, total global offshore wind capacity is to reach 80 GW by the end of the decade.
Advanced biofuels capacity in US seen at 1.6-2.6bn gallons by 2015
Moving across the Atlantic to a sector that has nothing to do with wind, we see that North America is progressing in terms of green fuel production. Under a forecast by US organisation Environmental Entrepreneurs (E2) the US' biofuels production capacity is seen at between 1.6 billion and 2.6 billion gallons (9.8bn litres) by 2015.
Annual ethanol production capacity is expected to reach between 337.2 million and 512.2 million gallons.
The Advanced Biofuel Market Report 2012 sees the biofuel production capacity in the US and Canada growing to some 685 million gallons in 2012 from 437 million gallons a year before. E2 has identified 165 active advanced biofuel producers in North America this year.
Sector firm Joule Unlimited Inc, which develops biofuel technologies, on Tuesday commissioned a demonstration plant in New Mexico which makes ethanol only from industrial waste carbon dioxide and sunlight, using specifically developed organisms. Joule's ultimate goal is to advance the technology to an annual productivity of as many as 25,000 gallons per acre at a cost of USD 1.28 (EUR 1) per gallon without subsidies.
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