Primary Markets for Offshore Wind Energy outside the European Union

Abstract

As part of the development of offshore wind energy systems, the engineering firm ‘aerodyn Engineering GmbH’ examined the world-wide potential for the primary markets in large-scale use of offshore wind energy outside the European Union. The countries considered already have sufficient onshore grid demand to accept, in principle, the offshore power. The results have been published in a comprehensive study, summarised in this paper. The main conclusion, based on the assessment scheme applied to the countries outside the EU, is that there are suitable sites, with a total area of about 275,000 km², for the primary market for offshore wind energy into established grid demand. These areas would accommodate nearly 330,000 wind turbines, each of 5 MW capacity. The total electricity production would be about 4,600 TW h/y. This is the equivalent of more than a quarter of the world's present electricity demand.