UK's annual offshore wind additions top 2 GW in 2018

The UK’s offshore wind turbine capacity has grown at a solid rate this year with the record 2,121 MW of new installations, RenewableUK said on Monday.

Since the start of 2018, the UK has commissioned eight new offshore wind parks, whose combined capacity is almost double the previous annual installation record of 1,154 MW reached back in 2012. The achievement was made with just 18% more turbines than those installed in 2012.

Among the newly commissioned offshore wind farms this year are the 659-MW Walney Extension, the world’s largest, the 400-MW Rampion and the 573-MW Race Bank. The output of the eight wind farms that were brought online is expected to meet the demand of over 2.3 million homes per year.

“This is just the beginning of the great shift to renewables,” said RenewableUK’s executive director Emma Pinchbeck. She said that the UK is expected to have 30 GW of operating offshore wind farms by 2030, which will supply more than 33% of the country’s power demand. In terms of investment, Pinchbeck predicted that the offshore wind segment will attract GBP 48 billion (USD 60.6bn/EUR 53.4bn) in investment by the end of the next decade.

(GBP 1.0 = USD 1.263/EUR 1.113)

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