Bottlenecks Expected Until 2026 in Every Region Except China – GWEC Report

August 28, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) has issued its annual offshore wind report, according to which 2022 was the second-best year for new capacity ever, with 8.8 GW connected to the grid around the world. The report also forecasts that a further 380 GW of offshore wind will be added by 2032, nearly half of which will come from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

More than 180 GW of new capacity in the APAC region has been identified outside of China, with Australia alone accounting for more than 50 GW.

While increasing its forecast for APAC, GWEC has downgraded its near-term forecast for Europe and North America by 17 per cent due to delays caused by permitting and other regulatory issues. According to the report, supply chain bottlenecks continue to be a risk for every region except China.

The projected 380 MW of new offshore wind installed would bring the total offshore wind capacity to 447 GW by the end of 2032. However, only one-third of this projected new volume will be added in 2023-2027, in part because challenging market conditions have pushed back offshore wind development in Europe and the US in the near term, GWEC says.

Looking longer-term, the new report forecasts strong growth of offshore wind capacities outside China from 2028 until 2032. Annual offshore wind installation capacity is expected to quadruple in 2028 from 8.8 GW in 2022 and pass 60 GW in 2032.

As reported in June, China, which has taken the top spot for new installations, as well as the total grid-connected offshore wind capacity, in 2021, now has more than 31 GW of offshore wind installed and a further 60.5 GW in the pipeline, according to a report issued earlier this year by Global Energy Monitor (GEM).

In its new annual report, GWEC says the total installed offshore wind capacity reached 34 GW in Asia-Pacific in 2022, with China continuing to lead global offshore wind development in 2022, although its new installations dropped to 5 GW from 21 GW in 2021.

Europe connected 2.5 GW of new offshore wind capacity in 2022 and reached 30 GW of total installed offshore wind capacity, 46 per cent of which is in the UK.

The remainder of the 8.8 GW added last year was connected in two more APAC countries, Taiwan (1,175 MW) and Japan (84 MW).

“The offshore wind sector has delivered another year of impressive growth to reinforce last year’s record numbers. This report outlines that the potential is there for record growth every year from now on. This would deliver a transformed, clean, secure energy system – particularly in the Asia-Pacific region”, said Ben Backwell, CEO at GWEC.

“However, governments and industry across the world will need to work together if this potential is to be realised, while trade and industrial policies will need to focus on partnership and collaboration to deliver investment and growth”.