Source: Reuters

Copenhagen: Offshore wind could develop a cornerstone of the world’s power supply as steep cost diminutions and enhanced technology unleash the potential of the green energy source, said the International Energy Agency (IEA). The agency further said that the concept of renewables replacing fossil fuel is essential to meet a internationally agreed goal of regulating temperature upsurge to below 2 degrees Celsius this century and the extension of offshore wind could elude 5-7 billion tones of CO2 emissions from the power sector globally.

Power generated from wind turbines at sea merely accounts for 0.3% of global electricity generation today, but the potential is gigantic, IEA executive director Fatih Birol told Reuters in the capital of Denmark, the country where the first offshore turbines were instated in 1991 and which last year generated 15% of its electricity from offshore wind. The agency appeared to be immensely motivated and stated that the based on current and suggested procedures, capacity is set to upturn 15-fold over the next two decades, turning it into a $1-trillion business.

According to IEA, offshore wind will soon beat New Natural Gas-fired competence on cost and be on a par with solar photovoltaic (PV) and onshore wind while in China, it is set to become competitive with new coal-fired capacity around 2030. UK today has the largest capacity but by around 2025, China is likely to have the greatest offshore wind convoy. The industry is also growing in markets like the United States, Taiwan, and Japan, told IEA. Denmark’s Orsted is the world’s prime creator of offshore wind, while Siemens Gamesa and MHI Vestas, a joint venture between Vestas and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are the largest makers of wind turbines employed at sea.