“Ambitious, but absolutely doable”: reaching 1,400GW of offshore wind 

Over the last decade the offshore wind sector has expanded by over 30%, according to the International Energy Agency.

Most recently, the sector had started to see a surge. In July, research agency BloombergNEF said that the first half of 2020 was the industry’s busiest ever. According to its database, offshore wind financing in the first six months of 2020 totalled $35bn, up 319% year-on-year, and well above 2019’s full year figure, a revised $31.9bn.

During this time, investment decisions were made on 28 sea-based wind farms, it noted, including the 1.5GW Vattenfall Hollandse Zuid array off the coast of the Netherlands, costing an estimated $3.9bn.

Governments have also set their own targets for installing the technology. The UK plans to install 40GW by 2030. The European Commission estimates between 240 and 450GW of offshore wind power is needed by 2050 to combat climate change.

It plans to publish a new strategy on offshore renewable energy this year as part of the European Green Deal. On the US Eastern Seaboard, states have also set targets for development totalling 25,400MW, expected to be delivered by 2026 and 2035.

This activity reflects the recognition that offshore wind is important to any future energy system that tackles climate change and creates energy security, says Tande.

“This is because there is available access to large areas where you can build offshore wind plants, something that doesn’t exist on land,” he explains.

To reach the scale needed for OREAC’s ambitious goal, the technology needs to advance so wind farms are cheaper and more reliable, says Tande.

“This includes all areas of technical development; the foundations, the sub-structures, grid connections - everywhere needs small incremental improvements, some more significant than others,” he explains.

Offshore wind can be categorised into fixed-bottom structures and floating ones. Today, most projects use fixed-bottom, with only around 1% being floating. However, 80% of offshore wind potential is in deep water and at more than 60m of water depth where floating turbines would solve a lot of problems.

Currently, there are various demonstrations and concepts of floating wind turbines, with numerous different designs.

Ajai Ahluwalia, principal electrical engineer at Equinor and shadow board member at Renewable UK, says the cost of floating turbines, in particular, needs to fall considerably, but that it can be done.

“As with all new technologies, costs tend to be higher when you’re doing something for the first time, but we’ve already seen how these can be reduced,” he says.

“Between demonstrating the floating wind concept in 2009 and opening Hywind Scotland, the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, in 2017, capex per megawatt reduced by 70%. The ambition for our next, bigger project, Hywind Tampen, is to reduce this even further, by more than 40%."

To a degree, the cost reduction has already been achieved with fixed-bottom turbines, he adds, the cost of which has dropped significantly in the last decade. An auction last year for fixed-bottom projects in the UK saw guaranteed prices of electricity at about £40 per megawatt hour. This is compared with earlier projects with prices as high as £150/MWh.

Some elements of floating turbine technology are more expensive as they are more technically challenging. For example, the dynamic electrical cables that connect into the electrical system need to withstand different, harsher conditions. However, being able to build in deeper sea areas with higher wind speeds means higher capacity factors, so the turbines produce more.

“This drastically improves the economics, balancing out the upfront costs. Creating synergies through industrialisation, and manufacturing and installation processes, will also further reduce costs and find new solutions. With scalability, there’s no reason why the cost won’t fall. I'm quite positive,” says Ahluwalia.

However, the greater the distance from shore, the more connection challenges, such as losses in the system. Ahluwalia says this challenge can be overcome with innovation.

“This is where we start talking about the offshore grid, and hydrogen being created offshore and piped onshore. These ideas used to be laughed at, but not anymore,” he says.

Exponentially more intermittent offshore wind, as proposed by OREAC, can negatively disrupt the grid system if not managed properly . Therefore, more energy storage, potentially in the form of hydrogen, will be needed, as well as advanced variable energy management and demand response.

Additionally, Tande says the industry needs to be mindful of the environmental impact of offshore wind farms, which could hamper development if not handled correctly.

“With proper planning and proper implementation, offshore wind farms can be built respecting nature. But it can also be done very badly, with large conflicts; it's important to take environmental assessments very seriously,” he adds.

In this respect, floating turbines are thought to be more benign as they can be floated out, rather than requiring drilling into the seabed.

But as OREAC suggests, if these challenges can be overcome, which both experts think they can, there are huge economic gains to be had.

According to Renewable UK’s July paper, ‘Recommendations for a Green Economic Recovery’, if a total of 11GW of new onshore and offshore wind capacity was secured at the next UK wind power auction, this would create over £20bn of investment in the manufacturing, installation, and operation of the projects and support around 12,000 jobs.

The sector is already the UK’s fourth largest investor in infrastructure, directly employing 11,000 people. If reached, the 40GW by 2030 target could create jobs for at least 27,000 people, calculates Renewable UK.

Furthermore, it could help provide new jobs for Europe’s coal regions, ensuring a just transition away from the polluting fuel. The European Commission’s Joint Research Center estimates over 12,000 jobs could be created with wind energy in these regions by 2030.

Tande agrees the opportunity for job transition is considerable: “We can see in Norway most of the companies involved with the offshore wind development have come from the offshore oil and gas business. They utilise their core competence as a starting point for working with offshore wind, it's a transferable skills base.”

Furthermore, as already mentioned, offshore wind could also support a new hydrogen economy. Tande believes the world could see the first large-scale hydrogen demonstration production offshore within the next decade.

“There could be offshore fuelling stations to produce ammonia fuel for shipping,” he adds.

Later this year OREAC will launch a report outlining what it believes is needed to support the industry and policymakers in achieving the 1,400GW vision, including infrastructure and market frameworks, safety considerations, and environmental planning.

For Tande, government support will be key to grow the sector, and this is already happening. The only part that is lacking, he says, is a clear vision of what the future energy mix should look like. But overall, offshore wind power is a “truly economic choice and preferred energy source”, he says.

For Ahluwalia, the UK's ability to meet its short-term target, as the leader in the offshore energy space, will be indicative of future prospects.

“If we can meet some of the short-term challenges and get to 40GW of offshore wind by 2030, I’ll have a lot more confidence we can hit those bigger numbers for 2050,” he says. “To achieve that we need to see multiples of projects happening.”