GWEC Market Intelligence releases Global Offshore Wind Turbine Installation Database

While Europe has sufficient vessel capacity at present to fulfil the region’s annual installation levels, there are concerns that vessel availability in China may present itself as a bottleneck considering the current installation rush to connect offshore projects to the grid before the end of 2021 to receive the Feed-in-Tariff. With this installation rush, over 10 GW of offshore wind capacity is  under construction right now, but current vessel availability in China can only support 6 GW of installations per year. Other emerging offshore wind markets such as the United States, Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan will be able to meet offshore wind demand using vessels from Europe at present, although they will need to begin looking to construct their own vessels as installations are expected to increase in these markets over the coming decade.

Looking to the future, offshore wind turbines are expected to increase significantly in size including the weight of nacelle, tower and foundation as well as the hub height, and vessels will need to adapt accordingly to be able to install these larger turbines to avoid future bottlenecks. Currently, only 9 vessels globally are able to support installation of turbines greater than 10 MW, and this will need to change quickly as there is more demand for these larger and more powerful turbines across the world.

The full database and analysis, which includes breakdown by vessel type and region, is available exclusively for GWEC Members and GWEC Market Intelligence subscribers in GWEC’s Members Area.

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GWEC Market Intelligence provides a series of insights and data-based analysis on the development of the global wind industry. This includes a market outlook, country profiles and policy updates, deep-dives on the offshore market, among other insights.

GWEC Market Intelligence derives its insights from its own comprehensive databases, local knowledge and leading industry experts.

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