Wind

Offshore Wind 

The first offshore wind turbines were installed at Vindeby off the Danish island of Lolland in 1991. The first ten years of the industry saw small projects being built in very shallow water near shore locations. These ‘demonstration' projects have paved the way for the more recent projects that are of a much larger size.

The biggest offshore wind farm yet installed is the 165 MW Nysted development off Denmark which was completed in 2003. There are 22 operational offshore wind farms in the world today. The 388 installed turbines in these projects provide a total of 800 MW.

The UK currently has the second largest amount of offshore wind capacity installed and will overtake Denmark in 2007 to become the world leader. Future prospects for the UK are excellent and government support strong. Other countries set for major growth include Germany and the US.

The East of England is home to the second of the UK's large offshore wind farms, Scroby Sands, installed off the Great Yarmouth coast in 2004. The region is ideally positioned to take advantage of this growing market being located between two of the three UK development areas, the Greater Wash and the Thames Estuary. On the Scroby Sands project, contracts to the value of £38.8m (48%) were sourced from UK companies, with £12.8m (16%) originating from within the East of England.

Offshore wind faces challenges to establish its full potential, the most immediate of which is cost, with major savings needed to ensure future projects are able to be built. The opportunity for innovation in the industry is high with tremendous potential for oil and gas experience to be transferred.

The large-scale deployment of offshore wind will take place when the next generation of wind turbines are commercially available. Currently 3 MW turbines are being installed but within 5 years most projects will be using turbines of 4-6 MW in size allowing substantially larger projects to be built.

Onshore Wind

Onshore wind power provides an increasingly economic source of energy, with significant worldwide growth for the last ten years. The industry has been made viable through economic subsidies which have enabled development to take place. For some countries, onshore wind power is both a key energy source and a major industry in its own right.

Some early leaders are now beginning to slow such as Germany; likewise Denmark has installed very little onshore capacity in recent years. To balance this, activity is still strong in the massive Spanish market and significant new markets such as the UK are emerging. Together with rapid growth in Asia, prospects for continued high growth remain strong.

The UK now has over 1,500 MW of onshore wind capacity installed, much of which is in Scotland where growth has been extremely rapid. The East of England currently has 16 onshore turbines across 5 individual projects with a 12 turbine project currently under construction.

Technology continues to evolve with turbine capacities and efficiencies increasing. Project sizes of 50 MW and above are now becoming common and in the US the largest projects are regularly several hundred megawatts in size.

*Taken from the EEEGR Business Plan 2007-2010