News

Global wind power grows by more than 60GW in 2019

Windfarms & Solarfarms

Land Referencing Services

26th March 2020

The offshore wind industry is constantly developing larger wind farms further away from shore.

As the capacity of turbines have increased, the electrical infrastructure has had to adapt to accommodate requirements.

In figures released today, global wind power grew by more than 60GW in 2019, its second biggest growth year in history, according to businessgreen.com.

With surging demand for clean energy worldwide the latest data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) has revealed the growth.

LRS were appointed to provide a full referencing service to support a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) for the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm Cable Connection. This involved a 42KM cable route located 32KM off the coast of Cromer in North Norfolk. Subsequently, the 67 wind turbine farm has been producing enough green, clean energy to power more than 410,000 UK homes.

New year-on-year wind farm capacity rapidly rose 19 per cent around the world last year. Moreover, the total capacity of wind energy globally is 651GW, according to the GWEC's annual update yesterday. The largest proportion of this comes from the US and China which together account for 60%.

Consistent Growth

Onshore wind continues to dominate the global market. However, there are signs that offshore wind is becoming an ever more important player in the renewables sector. A record 6.1GW of new capacity added made up 10 per cent of last year's global wind power growth.

LRS help clients across all sectors find solutions to meet the rising demand for power and deliver future energy schemes to help create a sustainable world.

Ben Backwell, CEO at GWEC, said wind energy was continuing to enjoy consistent growth as a result of having "unequivocally established itself as a cost-competitive energy source worldwide".

"We are still not where we need to be when it comes to the global energy transition and meeting our climate goals," he warned. "If we are to have any chance at reaching our Paris Agreement objectives and remaining on a 1.5C pathway, we need to be installing at least 100GW of wind energy annually over the next decade, and this needs to rise to 200GW annually post-2030 and beyond. This will mean stronger measures to push incumbent fossil fuels off the grid and a shake-up of administrative structures and regulation to ensure we can go out and build."

Source: www.businessgreen.com