Offshore wind capacity to increase by more than a third in 2021 – Riviera Maritime Media

05 Feb 2021byDavid Foxwell

Rystad Energy says installed offshore wind capacity is set to surge in 2021. It expects installed capacity to increase by 11.8 GW this year, which is a 37% increase compared to the 31.9 GW of capacity that had been installed by the end of 2020

China will continue to lead new capacity additions, contributing 63% of expected growth.

After 2021, China will begin phasing out feed-in-tariffs and many developers are therefore pushing to complete projects by then.

Rystad Energy said that, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, global installed offshore wind capacity rose by 15% in 2020, to 31.9 GW, from 27.7 GW at the end of 2019. China was the main contributor in 2020, accounting for 39% of last additions, followed by the Netherlands (18%) and the UK (17%).

Rystad Energy offshore wind product manager Alexander Fltre said, China had a construction backlog of more than 10 GW going into 2020. Chinese developers are racing to install more turbines by the end of 2021 in order to claim full feed-in-tariffs.

This means 2021 is going to see major capacity additions, particularly since some projects initially scheduled for commissioning in 2020 ended up slipping into 2021.

Like China, Europe and the US also saw some delays in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, offshore wind developers continued to make final investment decisions for projects.

In 2020, the UK sanctioned more than 4.7 GW of offshore wind and the Netherlands more than 2.2 GW.

In H2 2020, almost 25 GW of capacity was added to the global backlog. Currently, Brazil has no operational offshore wind capacity, but its backlog grew significantly in 2020 as the country added more than 15 GW to the drawing board.

In addition, other countries in the Asia Pacific apart from China are preparing for a ground-breaking year, including Taiwan and Vietnam.

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Offshore wind capacity to increase by more than a third in 2021 - Riviera Maritime Media