Welcome ! As a young French Marketing professional with a Master's in International Management I have been selecting since January 2007 the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change, cleantech and the world energy sector. Sounds great ? Don't hesitate to subscribe now !
To Enerzine [Fr] the world largest offshore wind farm has gone online in the Irish sea. Walney 2 has a capacity of 367,2 MW, enough to power 320,000 British households. It was also the fastest ever installation.
The farm will however quickly lose its title to other projects set to come online in the United Kingdom as well. Indeed, both the Greater Gabbard (500MW) and the London Array (630MW) fams will come online in 2012.
On a global scale, REVE notes that :” Global wind farm capacity accounted for approximately 197 GW in 2010 and will rise to 1,750 GW by 2030, finds a new report from Transparency Market Research. “
To CleanTechies : ” Worldwide installed wind capacity grew by 38.3 GW in 2010, according to the Global Wind Energy Council. That’s an increase of 24% in global wind capacity “. This is as much as what was installed in 2009.
China alone installed nearly half of it alone with 18.9 GW. The United States installed half of what they installed in 2009 with only 5 GW in 2010. The country could get twenty percent of their electricity by offshore wind by 2030.
To Reuters, the global wind power capacity thus reached a massive 197 GW. I wonder by how much it will grow in 2011…
Do you remember my post for Cleantechies on offshore wind in France ? It is now official : ” This week French officials are announcing a plan to install six hundred wind turbines capable of producing 3,000 megawatts of energy. “
The wind turbines will be located in five main sites between Saint-Nazaire and Dieppe/Le Treport (all off the Atlantic Ocean shores). More wind turbines will come later to reach hopefully 6,000 MW of capacity by 2020.
I am particularly glad this becomes official as the Grenelle de l’Environnement has suffered many setbacks in the past few months, including the decrease of feed in tariffs for solar PV… Continue »
To CleanTechies : ” The South Korean government will help fund construction of a massive offshore wind farm that proponents say would generate about 2,500 megawatts of electricity (…)”
“The $8.2 billion project (six billion euros), which proponents hope to complete by 2019. (…) In South Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest oil importer, officials see the initiative as a step toward reducing the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels. “
Local companies like Hyundai and Daewoo will build the 500 wind turbines. It seems I was quite right when I was writing we should prepare for a wind energy century.
Last week the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released a report stating the United States could get twenty percent of their electricity by offshore wind by 2030.
On the other side of the Pacific Ocean, China installed 13,8 GW of capacity in 2009 alone, to reach a capacity of 25,8 GW. A report notes that the wind capacity could reach 250 GW by 2020. These are staggering figures.
Meanwhile, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) notes that this energy source could provide a fifth of global electricity by 2030. Let’s have a detailed look at each of these news. Continue »
Here is another post on CleanTechies : ” According to the AFP, the French government will launch next month a tender for contracts of 10 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind capacity.”
” 600 wind turbines will be implemented within five to ten sites in Normandy, Brittany and the regions of Pays de la Loire and Languedoc. They are scheduled to start producing electricity by 2015. “
As always, to read out more, please read the full article there. All ratings and comments are appreciated. August seems to be filled with cleantech news in France…
After the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the huge environmental catastrophe it is leading to, more and more voices are now demanding offshore wind as a paliative.
This sounds like a good idea as the important offshore wind potential is still completely untapped in the United States. Meanwhile, the European Union installed more than 500 MW in 2009 only.
The main problem with offshore wind is that it can to its detractors ruin a perfect view. I guess floating wind turbines would solve this problem as they could be implented in much deeper waters.
I have been committed since January 2007 to bring you each month a selection of the latest headlines and best researches on sustainable development, climate change and the world energy sector.
But many more news are worth reading. This is why I use Twitter to share more news that are worth your time. I believe it offers a good complement to this website. This is even truer as this month was special since I couldn’t blog much.
Here is a selection of the most interesting ones. An impportant part of this month’s tweets are on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, THE environmental catastrophe of the decade. Continue »
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) published its annual report and the results are encouraging as the offshore wind energy capacity grew by 54 percent in 2009 with 577 MW.
The United Kingdom appears to be leading the sector as it installed more than half of the added capacity of the European Union. And this is only the beginning as the country plans to install 3,500 wind turbines this decade.
2010 is due to be another great year for this energy source accross the continent as capacity is due to grow by one gigawatt (1,000 MW if you prefer). Continue »
The United Kingdom has a most ambitious climate change mitigation plan as it is willing to cuts its emissions by 34 percent by 2020. This is further than the European Union which is willing to go as far as 30 percent.
This week, Gordon Brown is due to unveil a £100 billion (110 billion euros or $170 billion) wind energy program for the next decade. This would lead to the implementation of 3,500 wind turbines providing up to 25 GW of capacity.
Even if I would have prefered a plan of similar scope on energy efficiency I believe this is the beginning of a grand project that should inspire many of its neighbours. Continue »
