Deep_Water

Chapter 1: Unlocking offshore wind market potential
1.2 Market trends -
moving into deeper
waters with bigger
turbines
As the industry evolves, offshore wind farms are built
further from the coast and in deeper waters. This
reflects national maritime spatial planning and wind
farm developers’ desire to harness better energy resources
out at sea.
In 2012 the average water depth of offshore wind
farms was 22m. The average distance to shore was
29km. It is clear from projects under construction,
consented or planned, that average water depth and
distance to shore will increase. Projects announced
are up to 200km from shore and in water depths of
up to 215m.
Alongside the trend towards deeper waters, the offshore
wind sector is also developing larger turbines.
The average size of the turbines grid connected during
2012 was 4 MW, up from 3.6 MW in 2011.
In 2012, of the 38 new offshore wind turbine models
announced, only 9 (24%) had rated capacities of less
than 5 MW. The remaining 29 (76%) were larger machines.
Deep offshore designs will need to adapt to
these increased turbine sizes to achieve the optimal
balance between power production and cost.
Figure 5 Average water depth and distance to shore for online, under construction and consented offshore
wind farms (bubble size represents the total capacity of the wind farm)
120
100
Distance to shore (km)
80
60
40
Online
20
Under
construction
0
20
Consented
10 20
30 40 50
Average Water depth (m)
Source: EWEA
14 Deep Water - The next step for offshore wind energy