Bogdan Tudorache

About 1.3 GW in 166 offshore turbines were connected to the grid in the first half of 2021 (H1), according to the latest WindEurope report. The installations took place in the UK, Denmark and Netherlands, all in the North Sea, says the association. Overall orders for H1 totalled 241 turbines (2.6 GW).

At the same time, eight wind farms are under construction, and once completed they will represent an installed capacity of 5.4 GW. Five of those wind farms already connected turbines, while two are now fully commissioned.

In the first half 2.6 GW of new offshore capacity was financed, for a total of EUR 7.4 billion.

Turbines installed in most wind farms were 8-10 MW but there were orders for the first 14 MW turbines for the Sofia wind farm, an RWE project in Dogger Bank, in the North Sea, located 195 km from the nearest point on the UK’s North East coast. This is RWE’s largest offshore project so far, of 1.4GW, according to project’s online site consulted by Energynomics.

WindEurope also says that Europe’s total offshore installed capacity reaches now 26GW, leading countries being UK (42%), Germany (29%), Netherlands (10%), Denmark and Belgium (about 9% each).

Vatenfall topped H1’s works, with 57% of the installed turbines, followed by RWE (18%), Ocean Winds (14%) and Windpark Friesland (10%).

Financing in H1 2021, worth 7.4 billion euro, saw a better figure than that of the entire 2019 (6.6 billion euro), while in 2020 the overall year financing was of 26.3 billion euro, says the report consulted by Energynomics.