Offshore Wind

The EU target to source 20 per cent of Europe’s energy from renewable sources by 2020 is an ambitious one. While all renewable energy technologies will have to be rapidly developed to achieve this target, energy from offshore wind is expected to provide the largest share towards the UK renewable electricity goals in the next decade.
 
Offshore wind in the UK has been developed in a number of leasing rounds. Rounds one and two have been leased to developers, and when complete they will contribute an additional 8 GW of renewable energy capacity. 

The round three leasing round represents a step change in terms of the scale and acceleration of offshore wind construction, and aims to deliver an additional 33 GW of electricity generating capacity.

There are nine round three 'zones',  the largest of which are in the southern North Sea. The largest of these is the 'Dogger bank' zone which is the same size as the county of North Yorkshire.

There are two round three zones are in south west,  the Atlantic Array in the Bristol channel (zone 8) and the Navitus Bay wind park, west of the Isle of Wight, off the Dorset coast (Zone 7).

Floating wind in the south west

As offshore wind sites are getting bigger they are moving further offshore. This means increased technical challenges which will  need new and innovative solutions. Part of the solution will be using tethered floating turbines as well as the traditional monopiles and solid foundations. In the near future there could be large developments of floating wind parks out towards the western approaches.

A recent report produced by the Offshore Valuation Group, an informal collaboration of government and industrial organisation, concludes that by 2050, the UK could have an installed capacity of offshore wind, wave and tidal energy of 406 GW and be a net exporter of energy.

In terms of the south west, the best resources are wave energy, and floating wind in deep water sites a long way offshore. The largest single resource of floating wind in the future will be around Cornwall and south west of the Severn Estuary.

Although the floating wind technology is young it promises alot for the south west. In October 2011 the Energy Technologies Institute unveiled a £25M investment package to develop, install and comission a fully functioning demonstration system in 60-100m depth by 2016.