Offshore Wind Energy Blows Strongly in Europe and China even as it gets Stalled in the USA

Offshore Wind Taking Off Particularly in the United Kingdom

Offshore Wind Energy is starting to receive a huge amount of investment and attention both in Europe and Asia.Onshore wind installations facing the problems of visual impact,saturation of good windy geological locations  and problems of low frequency noise.However Offshore Wind Farms face no such problems since they are located in high wind locations offshore far away from the general population.The largest Wind Farm got installed in the UK with Swedish Utility Vattenfal starting a 300 MW + Farm off the cost of Thanet.UK is at the vanguard of the Offshore Wind Energy Revolution with the largest amount of installations at 1340 MW.The Government has given out a number of  approvals to another 30-40 GW of Wind Farms to a number of private players.This will not only substantially raise the Renewable Energy generated from UK but will also result in a huge number of Green Jobs and Investment.Already a number of Oil and Gas offshore companies are converting themselves to Green Ones to take advantage of the Offshore Wind Boom.The Wind Farms are being developed by big utilities like Dong,E.ON,EDP and RWE.

Germany is also big proponent of Offshore Wind Energy with plans of building 10 GW by 2020.Its companies like Siemens,E.ON,RWE are leading the way with a 48 MW Offshore Wind Farm opened recently off the northern coast of Germany near the town of Emden.Germany is already one of the biggest Wind Energy Producer in the World with 25 GW installed.

China Beating USA in Offshore Wind Energy as Well

China is beating USA in Green Energy Leadership which is now being openly spoken about by companies like Duke Energy,GE and Deutsche Bank.Now China is set to beat the US in setting up the first offshore Wind Farm as well.Wind Energy has found China to be its new capital with almost 50% of all Wind Installations in 2010 to come up in China.The First 100 MW Wind Farm is going to come up in East China Sea near Shanghai.USA on the other hand is still to see the Cape Wind Farm off Masachusetts see the light of the day.Despite Federal and State Approval , a host of oppositions group have managed to delay this Nanuteck Wind Farm.USA is supposed to have 4000 GW of Offshore Wind Potential which is 4 times the installed electricity capacity of the USA but a non-existent Energy Policy has ensured that not even 1 MW is getting exploited.Note the first mover advantage in offshore wind is very important as this technology is in the beginning phase.There is a steep learning curve and companies who build the first wind farms will have a huge global market in the future.

China Beats U.S. to First Offshore Wind Farm – FastCompany

The 102-megawatt Donghai Bridge Wind Farm, located 5 to 8 miles off the coast of the East China Sea, features 34 turbines with 3 megawatts of capacity each. The $337 million turbine project is attached to the soft seabed with legs installed on top of concrete piles, which are in turn covered by a concrete tack and the turbines.

And the U.S.? It’s still lagging far behind. The Cape Wind offshore turbine project, planned for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts, has federal approval, but there is still regulatory opposition to deal with. For some perspective, the Cape Wind project is entering its 10th year of negotiations–China’s offshore project was approved and completed in just four years. Which means that the U.S. won’t catch up to China anytime soon.