China will surpass Germany in offshore wind capacity investments by 2018, second only to the U.K., finds a recent report from MarketResearch.com.
According to the report, the global offshore wind market will grow from 4.8 GW in 2011 to 80 GW in 2020. Global offshore wind power installed capacity grew from 54 MW in 2001 to 2.86 GW in 2010. This growth was driven by the commissioning of a 2.119 GW offshore wind farm in the U.K. in 2010 and a 749 MW offshore wind farm in Denmark in 2007.
The U.K. and Denmark are the leaders in terms of installed capacity, with 1.3412 GW and 853.7 MW, respectively, in 2010.
During the forecast period of 2011 to 2020, total global offshore wind installed capacity is expected to grow from 4.78 GW to 80.04 GW. The sudden rise in capacity in 2020 is mainly due to a capacity addition of 13 GW in the U.K. and 2 GW in China.
China has introduced a number of new offshore wind farms and is planning to reach more than 11 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2020. The expected high growth in the cumulative installed capacity in China is mainly due to a high-capacity offshore wind farms planned for the future, namely the Pingtan offshore wind farm in the East China Sea, with a capacity of 1.5 GW; the Lufeng Jiahu Bay Offshore Wind Power Plant in the South China Sea, with a capacity of 1.25 GW; the Hebei offshore wind farm in the Yellow Sea, with a capacity of 1 GW; and the Bohai Bay offshore wind farm, with a capacity of 1 GW.
