Offshore wind to provide tenth of Europe's electricity

The potential scale of Europe's offshore wind energy industry was underlined this week with the release of a new report predicting that the construction of those offshore wind farms already at the planning stage could deliver up to 10 per cent of the continent's electricity needs.

The report from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) was unveiled to an audience of more than 3,000 delegates at the trade group's annual offshore wind energy conference in Stockholm. It calculated that more than 100GW of offshore wind capacity is already planned in Europe, estimating that the construction of these projects would help cut carbon emissions by more than 200 million tonnes a year.

The report was welcomed by EU energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs, who said that those projects already in the pipeline would “provide an answer to the global challenges of climate change, depleting indigenous energy resources, increasing fuel costs and the threat of energy supply disruptions".

He added that the European Commission was fully committed to doing " everything we can to support offshore wind developers and make sure their planned projects come to fruition".

The EWEA immediately challenged Piebalgs to make good on that commitment with the publication of a detailed 20-year plan outlining how Northern Europe's grid infrastructure should be upgraded to support the 150GW of offshore wind energy that is expected to come online by 2030.

The report proposes a €20bn to €30bn (£17.6bn to £26.4bn) investment programme that would expand upon the 11 offshore grids already in place and the 21 grids currently being planned, adding a further eight offshore grids by 2020 and six more by 2030. The new grids would include additional connections between Ireland and the UK, as well as between a number of Baltic Nations and between the UK and other North Sea countries.

EWEA chief executive Christian Kjaer called on the commission to incorporate the offshore network plan into the blueprint for a North Sea grid which is currently in development and due to be published next year.

"EWEA's new offshore network plan will provide a truly pan-European electricity super highway," he said. "This will bring affordable electricity to consumers, reduce import dependence, cut CO2 emissions and allow Europe to access its largest domestic energy source – offshore wind."

On the other side of the Atlantic, meanwhile, there was more good news for the booming US wind energy sector after the House of Representatives last week voted in favour of legislation requiring the Department of Energy (DoE) to undertake a $1bn (£600m) wind energy R&D investment programme.

Under the Wind Energy Research and Development Act, the DoE will be required to invest $200m a year up to 2014 in projects designed to improve the efficiency and lower the cost of wind energy technologies.