The German market for offshore wind energy projects broke through the gigawatt barrier last year. By 31 December 2014, 258 offshore wind turbines in the German North and Baltic Seas with a total capacity of 1,049.2 megawatts fed into the grid.
This figure was ascertained by Deutsche WindGuard on behalf of the four organisations VDMA Power Systems, the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), the Wind Energy Agency (WAB) and the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation (SOW).
According to the survey, 142 offshore wind turbines providing a capacity of 528.9 megawatts were newly connected to the grid. In addition to the grid-connected offshore wind turbines, the construction of a further 268 turbines with a capacity of 1,218.1 megawatts was completed in 2014, but these had not been fully grid-connected by the end of the year. The cumulated capacity of the 285 offshore turbines installed by the end of 2014 but not hooked up to the grid amounts to 1,303.1 megawatts. And another 220 foundations have been already put in position.
“Out at sea we have now officially broken through the gigawatt barrier for installed capacity. This corresponds to an investment volume of around 4 billion euros. In addition, turbine, foundation and grid technology exports are also in the billion-euro range. In 2015 we are expecting up to 2 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity to be newly connected to the grid. By the end of 2015, we will see a total of some 3 gigawatts installed capacity online, which corresponds to an investment of 10 billion euros in the domestic market of the German offshore wind industry”, says Norbert Giese, chairman of the VDMA steering committee for the offshore wind industry and board member of the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation.