The development of large onshore wind farms has been accelerating around the world over the last 20 years so that wind farms >100 MW in rating are now commonplace and the world's installed capacity is >238 GW with an annual energy production of >345 TWh. Confidence with large onshore wind operations has encouraged nations and developers to start developing larger offshore wind farms over the last 10 years. The lead is currently being taken in Europe, in the North, Baltic and Irish Seas, with the United Kingdom currently having the largest installed offshore capacity with a potential annual energy production of >800 GWh and the largest offshore wind farm rated at 300 MW from 100 WTs. China has also made a large commitment to offshore wind having installed 133 MW of OWTs, and it seems that, with its large south-eastern coastal electricity load, well-developed grid in those areas and good offshore wind resource, we are likely to see a large expansion in the near future. The United States has started to consider the opportunities on its eastern seaboard and this could also be a region of high growth. Economic analyses of European offshore wind sites to date have shown that the WT installation cost is approximately 100% more than onshore, the CoE is about 33% more than onshore, whilst the O&M cost is 18-23% more than onshore, all depending upon the offshore wind location, changing as lessons are learnt in the field. There are a number of roles in the offshore wind industry and these have been clearly set out in this chapter.

Chapter Contents:

• 1.1 Development of wind power
• 1.2 Large wind farms
• 1.3 First offshore developments
• 1.4 Offshore wind in Northern Europe
• 1.4.1 Overview
• 1.4.2 Baltic Sea
• 1.4.3 UK waters
• 1.5 Offshore wind rest of the world
• 1.5.1 The United States
• 1.5.2 Asia
• 1.6 Offshore wind power terminology and economics
• 1.6.1 Terminology
• 1.6.2 Cost of installation
• 1.6.3 Cost of energy
• 1.6.4 O&M costs
• 1.6.5 Effect of reliability, availability and maintenance on cost of energy
• 1.6.6 Previous work
• 1.7 Roles
• 1.7.1 General
• 1.7.2 Regulator
• 1.7.3 Investors
• 1.7.4 Certifiers and insurers
• 1.7.5 Developers
• 1.7.6 Original equipment manufacturers
• 1.7.7 Operators and asset managers
• 1.7.8 Maintainers
• 1.8 Summary
• 1.9 References

Inspec keywords: offshore installations; power grids; wind turbines; power generation economics; wind power plants

Other keywords: offshore wind farms; time 20 year; United Kingdom; CoE; South-Eastern Coastal electricity load; power 300 MW; European offshore wind site economic analyses; annual energy production; well-developed grid; time 10 year; OWT; offshore wind development; onshore wind operations; offshore wind industry; power 133 MW; WT installation cost; onshore wind farms; offshore wind resource; offshore wind location; Irish Seas; United States; Baltic Seas

Subjects: Wind power plants; Power system management, operation and economics