- After a year of canceled projects, broken turbines, and abandoned lease sales, the global offshore wind industry no longer has much chance to hit the lofty targets set by governments in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere, marking a setback for efforts to fight climate change.
"We're pretty far away from these targets," Soren Lassen, head of offshore wind research at energy research firm Wood Mackenzie, said in an interview. He said offshore wind farms now have a global average cost of $230 per megawatt-hour – up 30% to 40% in the past two years and more than triple the average of $75/MWh for onshore facilities.
IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera told Reuters offshore wind is now projected to fall short of its target by a third. Estimates by three other prominent research firms project that the world will not reach 500 GW of offshore wind installations until after 2035.
Britain, the second-biggest offshore wind market after China, will also miss its goal of 60 GW by 2030, said Damien Zachlod, managing director of offshore wind developer EnBW Generation UK. Sourcing cheap equipment from China would help reduce costs for developers in Europe, Japan and the United States, but governments there have sought to encourage local production to reduce reliance on Beijing.
Rebecca Williams, deputy CEO of the Global Wind Energy Council trade group, acknowledged there is a risk the industry could miss its targets, but said hitting them is still possible with the right policies.