You may or may not be aware that Russia has recently closed a Baltic gas pipeline for 10 days for annual maintenance. Not sinister at all, until you realise that gas supplies are perhaps being used as part of the war against the west, for siding with Ukraine. Germany is rightly concerned that a 10 day halt could become permanent and the German Economy Minister, Robert Habeck, admits Russian gas dependence has caused major issues:

He described that as:

“A grave political mistake as we can see today, which we are trying to remedy as quickly as we possibly can”.

He said two floating terminals for deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG) would be ready by the end of the year.

To reduce this dependence, Germany is looking offshore for renewable energy sources and the Bundestag has approved the new version of the country’s offshore wind bill, the Wind Energy at Sea Act.

What this will mean, in practice, is that millions of euros are being earmarked and invested in offshore wind. Unusually, perhaps, there has been opposition to the wind farms being developed unilaterally, with politicians citing the examples of mobile phone networks, that have created consumer price rises, not reductions in phone tariffs.

Germany, along with Denmark and the UK, are European leaders in offshore wind farms and technology.

From Albatros, with its 16 × Siemens SWT-7.0-154 turbines to Gode Wind 1 & 2 with 97 turbines, it has ambitious plans for further growth. Germany aims to build 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030, 40 GW by 2035 and at least 70 GW by 2045. Ambitious indeed.

Most offshore wind farms are currently in northern Europe. The United Kingdom and Germany alone accounted for roughly two thirds of the total offshore wind power capacity installed worldwide in 2016. China is now rapidly expanding its offshore wind power capacity, and as of 2022, has surpassed UK and Germany combined. It will be interesting to see how these figures from 2016 to 2021 change with Germany’s increased investment in offshore wind.

List of countries by cumulative installed offshore wind power capacity (MW)
Rank Country 2016 2017] 2018 2019 2020 2021
1 China 1,627 2,788 4,588 6,838 9,996 19,747
2 United Kingdom 5,156 6,651 7,963 9,723 10,428 12,281
3 Germany 4,108 5,411 6,380 7,493 7,689 7,701
4 Netherlands 1,118 1,118 1,118 1,118 2,611 3,010
5 Denmark 1,271 1,268 1,329 1,703 1,703 2,343
6 Belgium 712 877 1,186 1,556 2,261 2,263
7 Taiwan 0 8 8 128 128 237
8 Sweden 202 202 192 191 192 191
9 South Korea 35 38 73 73 136 104
10 Vietnam 99 99 99 99 99 99
11 Japan 60 65 65 85 85 85
12 Finland 32 92 87 71 71 71
13 United States 30 30 30 30 42 42
14 Ireland 25 25 25 25 25 25
15 Portugal 25 25
At the end of 2019, in the most recent statistics we could find, Germany had installed 1,469 offshore wind turbines with a total capacity of 7,516 MW. 

What is clear to us at HSEQ-360 Ltd is that the new legislation, armed with Germany’s superb track record in offshore investment, may see it overtake the UK in capacity and, given that the UK and Germany produce over 60% of global capacity from offshore wind, the scope for further collaboration between the UK and Germany is both inevitable and desirable.

Offshore-Windpark and Offshore Wind Farms have a bright future it seems.