UK Offshore Wind Pipeline Now at 86 GW

The UK’s total pipeline of offshore wind projects now stands at 86 GW, more than eight times the UK’s current operational capacity, according to statistics published by RenewableUK on 22 March.

This represents a 60 per cent increase over the past 12 months, driven mainly by massive leasing round announcements by The Crown Estate (8 GW) and Crown Estate Scotland (25 GW), RenewableUK said.

The 86 GW include projects which are fully operational, under construction, consented, in the planning system, or being developed for submission into planning.

This is more than 20 GW more than reported by RenewableUK in September 2021, based on research by its Project Intelligence team, which found the UK’s total offshore wind capacity pipeline at the time to be 63.2 GW.

“Our latest EnergyPulse report shows that the UK’s world-class offshore wind industry has taken huge strides forward in the past twelve months, with landmark leasing announcements adding an extra 33GW to our pipeline, and funding for floating wind ringfenced in the current CfD auction to help accelerate the growth of innovative technology”, said RenewableUK’s Chief Executive Dan McGrail.

“It’s clear that offshore wind will be doing the heavy lifting as we secure our clean home-grown energy supplies and move faster towards independence from unstable fossil fuel imports”.

The latest EnergyPulse report from RenewableUK also analyses data on major components of UK offshore wind farms such as turbines, cables and substations, and shows that the average turbine capacity will increase from 8-9 MW this year to 14-15 MW by 2025.

Looking globally, the total offshore wind pipeline worldwide has reached 517 GW, according to the report, with China (24 GW) now having more capacity in full operation than the UK (10.5 GW).

However, the UK’s total pipeline of 86 GW is bigger than China’s 75 GW, with the US following in third place with 48 GW.

“The global offshore wind market is also continuing to grow at a phenomenal rate with an extra 200GW added to the pipeline over the last year. As the UK was an early mover in offshore wind, we’re in a prime position to capitalise on our expertise as a market leader which is highly sought after worldwide”, Dan McGrail said.

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