World offshore wind power set for major investments

FRANKFURT - - The world's fledgling offshore wind energy industry will see total investments of nine billion euros ($10.65 billion) in the coming six years, data by the European wind power association (EWEA) revealed recently.

This will boost total offshore capacity to 5,000 megawatts (MW) by 2010 from a mere 280 MW at the moment, the operator of the international wind power trade fair WindEnergy, being held in Hamburg, quoted EWEA as saying.

"Total capacity of the dozen offshore wind parks worldwide is small today, but offshore will become an important pillar of the wind power industry," a WindEnergy spokeswoman said.

"The leading offshore markets will be European countries such as the UK, Germany and Denmark, and the U.S.," she said.

Wind power accounts for around one percent of global energy supply, but the sector is growing fast as part of the struggle to cut greenhouse gas emissions, which many scientists say cause global warming.

A record 8,344 MW were installed worldwide in 2003, taking the total wind power capacity past 40,000 MW, enough to power more than 16 million average European homes.

Europe is still the driving force in the wind power industry accounting for two thirds of global installed MW with Germany being the largest market.

But German wind power plant producers have said they are increasingly looking to sell abroad, build future offshore wind sites in Germany or abroad and upgrade existing plants as domestic onshore sites have become limited in recent years.

In the market to replace ageing plants with modern and more powerful turbines, producers expect to sell new turbines with a total capacity of 1,060 MW in Germany by 2008, EWEA said in a statement.

But Germany's so-called repowering market -- the replacement of old smaller plants with new, larger and more powerful ones -- has to overcome hurdles, including the need for a government approval to build a new turbine on an existing site and bottle necks on the electricity networks as new plants produce more energy, it said.

"(Germany's) smallest plants currently spin at the best places. But it is often not possible to receive a new building permit for bigger plants... so the potential of the (repowering) market segment is still uncertain," a spokesman for producer Nordex said in the EWEA statement.

The world's biggest wind turbine makers are Denmark's Vestas and NEG Micon, GE Wind, Germany's privately owned Enercon and Nordex and Repower.