A new analysis from Westwood Global Energy Group, the specialist energy market research and consultancy firm, reveals skyrocketing offshore wind growth with 135 GW of new capacity on offer to developers, equivalent to nearly 2.5 times today’s 55 GW market.
This is bolstered by new market expansion with over 20 GW of leases up for grabs in countries that have not previously held a licensing round, such as Canada, Colombia, and India.
“This growth will present huge opportunities and challenges to the sector – both for the supply chain delivering existing projects and the developers exploring new opportunities. As the offshore wind industry tries to do it all to deliver the energy transition, understanding the full breadth of the market is more important than ever,” Peter Lloyd-Williams, Senior Analyst for Offshore Wind at Westwood, said.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time for the offshore wind market, but equally, we’re faced with lots of unknowns. New markets, new developers, and new suppliers are all entering at a pace that makes up-to-date market intelligence imperative to decision-making. Recognizing this need, we’ve scaled in step to provide both existing and new customers with the reliable and wide-ranging market intelligence insights they need to identify and compare opportunities and get up to speed quickly, with all commercial and supply chain data in one place,” David Linden, Head of Energy Transition at Westwood, added.
In recent news regarding wind licensing rounds, Crown Estate UK updated developers on the design of the tender process for seabed leasing for floating wind energy in the Celtic Sea.
The Celtic Sea program is intended to provide 4GW of renewable energy capacity by 2035, with the region assessed to have the economic potential to accommodate up to an additional 20GW by 2045.
The program will not only boost the UK’s net zero ambitions and deliver enhanced energy security, but will also create new jobs, skills, and investment, including in Wales and the Southwest of England.
Following the announcement in July of five broad ‘Areas of Search’, The Crown Estate has now published ‘Refined Areas of Search’ which are smaller areas of the seabed within which projects may be in the future. The original Areas 1 and 5 have been removed from current consideration, while five smaller areas have been identified within Areas 2, 3, and 4, after engagement with multiple stakeholders.
