Offshore wind could supply up to one-quarter of Europe’s electricity demand at a rate of €54 per megawatt-hour, and deliver 2,600 to 6,000 terawatt-hours of electricity at up to €65 per megawatt-hour, according to a consulting report commissioned by the EU trade association WindEurope.
Pricing includes grid connections, and is based on technologies that are expected to be available by 2030—including a 13-megawatt wind turbine, when the largest now available produces 9.5 MW.
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The rate of 5.4 Eurocents per kilowatt-hour came from a scenario focused on the most favourable locations, with the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, and France accounting for most of the development. The 2,600- to 6,000-TWh scenario, with the higher price point, included output from Ireland, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania, and showed offshore wind meeting 80 to 180% of the continent’s electricity demand.
Notwithstanding the best-case scenarios in the report, “WindEurope is currently focusing simply on EU governments working to see offshore wind account for between 7% to 11% of the EU’s electricity demand by 2030,” CleanTechnica notes. To hit that target, the report calls for stronger national commitments to offshore wind deployment, better cooperation to build a “continuous, sufficient, and visible” procurement pipeline, better spatial planning and site development to minimize production costs, and development of complementary international grid systems.
