One of the most interesting news items in the past week was a report that energy-challenged China is planning to rapidly boost its offshore wind sector to 30 GW by 2020.

According to the nation’s National Energy Administration, China will increase its offshore wind power installed capacity to 5 GW in the next five years and create a complete technology and industrial chain to service the growing sector.

“EWEA names UK leader in offshore wind”

“Offshore-Windparks wachsen weiter und schneller ins Meer”

“UK wind energy blows away EU rivals”

“European Offshore Wind May Surge 70% in 2011, Trade Group Says”

Those were just some of the headlines on stories published by international media outlets, trade publications and blogs in response to a European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) press release last week announcing another surge in the development of offshore wind power.

And it is understandable there was such interest especially considering the EWEA press release noted that “with 308 new offshore wind turbines installed in 2010 – an increase of 51% in installed wind power capacity on the previous year – offshore wind power experienced a new record growth in Europe.”

Offshore wind energy has an “important” role in helping the EU to meet its 2020 renewable energy target, Hans Van Steen, Head of Unit at the European Commission’s department for energy said on Tuesday.

Some 40 GW of offshore wind energy should be online by 2020, with the majority being in the North Sea, he added, speaking at an event called ‘Offshore renewable energies: exploring the synergies’ in Brussels as part of the European week of regions and cities.

The 40 GW figure chimes exactly with EWEA’s target to have a minimum of 40 GW of offshore wind energy by 2020.

A new milestone in offshore wind energy was reached today as the world’s largest offshore wind farm opened off the east coast of the UK. The Thanet wind farm in Kent comprises 100 turbines which will be able to produce 300 MW of electricity, enough to power more than 200,000 homes a year.

Chris Huhne, UK environment secretary, is set to officially open the farm today. “We are an island nation and I firmly believe we should be harnessing our wind, wave and tidal resources to the maximum,” Huhne told the BBC.

Once Thanet is online, the amount of electricity generated by wind power in the UK will reach nearly 5 GW – or enough to power 3 million homes.
Maria McCaffery of Renewable UK said that Britain was on the verge of exporting wind powered electricity.

Further proof of China’s desire to aggressively tap into the still nascent, and potentially highly lucrative, offshore wind power sector as part of its plan to embrace a green energy revolution was revealed earlier this week in a story by ClimateWire.

The story, published by Environment & Energy Publishing and distributed by The New York Times, also pointed out just how much further China is ahead of the US in developing its offshore wind industry.

“What the U.S. doesn’t realise,” the story quoted Peggy Liu, founder and chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, as saying, is that China “is going from manufacturing hub to the clean-tech laboratory of the world.”