A little more than 1.6 GW of offshore wind capacity became operational worldwide in the first half of 2021, which demonstrates a slowdown in global offshore wind growth likely caused by the impacts of COVID-19, according to the latest update by World Forum Offshore Wind (WFO) published in its Global Offshore Wind Report for the first half of this year.
Six offshore wind farms went into operation during HY1 2021 in China, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Taiwan.
Global offshore wind installations reached 34 GW by the end of June 2021. In total, 169 offshore wind farms are now up and running of which 110 are located in Europe, 57 in Asia and 2 in the USA.
The UK remains the world’s biggest offshore wind market with 10.4 GW of total installed capacity.
China has overtaken Germany as the world’s second-largest offshore wind market with 7.9 GW of operational capacity as compared to Germany’s 7.7 GW, according to WFO.
China is also moving ahead with 5.3 GW offshore wind farms currently being under construction while construction activities in the German offshore wind market are stagnating due to regulatory framework changes, according to WFO .