Offshore wind power
use of wind turbines constructed in marine bodies of water to harvest wind energy to generate electricity
Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. Due to a lack of obstacles at sea versus on land, higher wind speeds tend to be observed at sea, which increases the amount of power that can be generated per wind turbine. Offshore wind farms are also less controversial than those on land, as they have less impact on people and the landscape.
Unlike the typical use of the term "offshore" in the marine industry, offshore wind power includes inshore water areas such as lakes, fjords and sheltered coastal areas as well as deeper-water areas. Most offshore wind farms employ fixed-foundation wind turbines in relatively shallow water. Floating wind turbines for deeper waters are in an earlier phase of development and deployment.
As of 2022, the total worldwide offshore wind power nameplate capacity was 64.3 gigawatts (GW). China (49%), the United Kingdom (22%), and Germany (13%) account for more than 75% of the global installed capacity. The 1.4 GW Hornsea Project Two in the United Kingdom was the world's largest offshore wind farm. Other large projects in the planning stage include Dogger Bank in the United Kingdom at 4.8 GW, and Greater Changhua in Taiwan at 2.4 GW.
The cost of offshore wind power has historically been higher than that of onshore, but costs decreased to $78/MWh in 2019.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Offshore wind power” is use of wind turbines constructed in marine bodies of water to harvest wind energy to generate electricity. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Offshore, wind and power, not as a finished interpretation.
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This entry incorporates text from “Offshore wind power” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.