17 EU countries planning massive offshore wind power

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://ewea.org/index.php?id=60&no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=1921&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=259&cHash=818112a79c7e4167cc5c071b44ea18e3

17 EU countries planning massive offshore wind power

29 November 2011

Over 141 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy capacity is built, under construction, consented, or planned in Europe: enough to power 130 million average EU households. These wind farms - representing 35 times more capacity than the just under 4 GW installed today - would provide 13.1% of Europe's total electricity production.

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) today published its latest report analysing all existing offshore wind power projects in 17 EU member states, mostly in north-western Europe. New offshore wind farms with a capacity of 5.6 GW are currently under construction in the UK, Germany and Belgium.

"There is huge developer interest in offshore wind energy across Europe", commented Arthouros Zervos, President of EWEA. "Developers, governments and investors realise that offshore wind energy offers the growth and jobs that Europe desperately needs."

169,000 jobs in the EU offshore wind energy sector are expected to be created by 2020, going up to 300,000 by 2030, according to the EWEA report. European companies are currently global leaders, with over 99% of the world's installed offshore capacity in European waters.

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http://ewea.org/fileadmin/ewea_documents/documents/publications/reports/23420_Offshore_report_web.pdf

[kristopher]

1. Globally we are expected to exceed 560GW (onshore and off) of wind by 2017 - nt

[FogerRox]

2. Projects like the HVDC backbone Atlantic Wind Connection are exciting

141 gigs, boy we should do that here in the US KnR