Can you imagine something 100 metres tall? That’s the length of one football pitch, four normal public swimming pools, or the height of a basketball hoop from the floor, 33 times over.

That’s how high the offshore turbines being installed today are. And Europe is installing more and more of them in its waters – 101 were put up and grid connected in the first six months of 2011 alone.

EWEA’s newly released figures show they have a total of 348 MW of capacity – making a 4.5% increase on the offshore turbines put up in the first half of 2010. They are bigger than before, too, at an average 3.4 MW each – up from 2.9 MW last year.

All this new offshore wind power is bringing in money for Europe. Eleven offshore wind farms worth some €8.5 billion and with a total capacity of 2,844 MW are currently under construction in European waters. Financial institutions will this year provide a record amount of financing to the sector – over €3 billion.

As of 30 June 2011, there are 1,247 offshore wind turbines fully grid connected in Europe. They have a total capacity of 3,294 MW and are in 49 wind farms spread between nine countries.

Read ‘The European offshore wind industry – key trends and statistics’