Offshore wind promoted as answer to Europe's energy crunch
BRUSSELS, Belgium, 2004-10-06 (Refocus Weekly)
The wind industry in Europe wants to develop into an industry of the same size as the offshore oil and gas sector.
Europe's energy imports will rise as much as 70% in the next two decades,
while global demand for oil and gas increases and supply is constrained, says
the European Wind Energy Association. Turbines installed in 150,000 km2 of sea,
in water less than 35 m deep, could generate sufficient electricity to satisfy
the continent’s total demand.
"Oil and gas reserves are concentrated in Russia, the Caspian Sea region
and the Middle East,” says Corin Millais of EWEA. “A strategy of reliance on
imported energy resources at unpredictable prices inherently requires the
assurance of political and economic stability in producer countries.”
“Stabilising Europe's grids to accommodate large amounts of wind electricity
from the sea would require far less political capital,” he adds. “Thirty
years ago, the North Sea oil came to the rescue of a Europe facing an
international oil crisis; we are now faced with a different crisis, and we need
offshore wind to help solve it.”
For the successful implementation of offshore wind energy, there can be no
physical grids at sea to connect large-scale offshore wind energy. Other
barriers include a lack of international cooperation over the conduct of
Environmental Impact Assessments and current distortions of the electricity
markets in Europe.
“These are big hurdles, but they can be overcome,” says Millais.
“Governments have successfully solved these types of issues before.”
“The general climate facing offshore wind bears striking similarity to that
faced by the planners and policy makers who sought to explore Europe's offshore
natural gas resources,” he adds. “But whilst the boom in the oil and gas
resources of the North Sea is now coming to an end, offshore wind is capable of
filling that energy gap.”
In Europe, 600 MW of offshore windfarms represent 2% of current installed wind
capacity, but EWEA wants that level to increase to 13% by 2010 and 39% by 2020.
That would represent a total of 70 GW within 16 years.
Eight nations with specific offshore plans want to install 52 GW of capacity
over the next 25 years. Germany wants 25 GW, 9 GW in the UK, 6 GW in the
Netherlands, 5 GW in Denmark, 3 GW in Sweden, 2 GW in Ireland and the same in
Belgium, and 0.5 GW in France.
Two years ago, politicians from Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, the
Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK met to discuss the effects
of climate change on the ecosystem of the North Sea and the need to emphasize
development of renewables. Their declaration prioritized offshore wind as having
"the potential to make a significant contribution to tackling the problems
of climate change."
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