Global offshore wind project pipeline doubles over last 12 months

China has the biggest offshore wind project pipeline at 98GW, the UK is in second place at 91GW (up from 55GW a year ago) and the USA is third with 80GW. Germany is fourth at 57GW. Other countries with major pipelines include Brazil, Sweden, Ireland, Vietnam and South Korea. Europe has a pipeline of 350GW (with 26GW fully operational) and the pipeline in countries outside Europe stands at 496GW.

In terms of operational capacity, China leads with 24.5GW, the UK is second at 10.5GW, Germany third with 7.7GW, The Netherlands fourth at 3GW and Denmark fifth with 2.3GW:

The UK has the biggest pipeline of floating projects in the world at 32GW. Sweden is second at 25GW, Taiwan third with 21GW, Ireland fourth at 16GW and South Korea fifth at 16GW. Australia, Italy, the USA and Finland also have significant floating wind pipelines.

The UK also has the biggest operational floating capacity at 80MW, with two floating wind farms generating in Scottish waters. More are planned as part of ScotWind and in the Celtic Sea. Portugal is second with 25MW and Norway and China share third at 6MW each. Equinor’s Norwegian 88MW Hywind Tampen project is due to be operational later this year. 

RenewableUK’s CEO Dan McGrail said: “The global growth of offshore wind over the last year is nothing short of staggering. Our EnergyPulse report shows that this technology is now a truly global industry, not just in Europe and Asia, but also with major projects underway in North and South American and Australia.

“Countries around the world recognise the urgent need to ramp up the transition to clean power - not only to tackle climate change, but also to provide secure supplies of low-cost homegrown electricity for people hit hard by international gas prices going through the roof. Add to that the benefits of creating millions of skilled jobs and attracting billions in private investment, and you can see why offshore wind is surging ahead globally.

“But we can move faster, if Governments play their part by speeding up sluggish consenting processes and ensuring that new grid infrastructure is built when and where it’s needed. We’re working closely with Ministers on this, and many other counties are following our lead.

“It’s great to see that the UK has the biggest global pipeline of floating projects, as this will prove to be a gamechanger in reaching net zero faster, as well as creating opportunities for us to export innovative British technology all over the world, building up new supply chains”.   

The report, which is free to RenewableUK members, is being released on the first day of RenewableUK’s Global Offshore Wind conference and exhibition in Manchester.

Included in the global pipeline figure of 846GW are 135GW of projects which are proposed to be built in areas of the sea overlapping with other proposed offshore wind developments. The majority of these projects are in Brazil, Taiwan, and Sweden. The graphs above do not include overlapping projects. RenewableUK’s EnergyPulse database and reports, which are available to members of RenewableUK, have further details of these projects.