Offshore wind power increased its capacity by more than 18 percent in 2018 with Germany and the United Kingdom being the leader. WindEurope released annual report and according to the organisation, 2.6 gigawatts of new capacity came online. At the end of last year, total 18,499 MW were installed with 4,543 wind turbines. Only five countries – UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium accounted for 98% of all capacity, the United Kingdom having 44% and Germany 34%. The United Kingdom opened the largest wind farm also used the largest wind turbine. However, the 8.8 megawatt turbine will not remain the largest for a long ; a turbine of 12 megawatts will be installed in the port of Rotterdam this year. This turbine has been developed by GE as an offshore turbine, but is on the ground in Rotterdam to be tested.

“The technology continues to develop. The turbines are getting bigger and the costs continue to fall. It is now no more expensive to build offshore wind than coal or gas plants. And it is much cheaper than new nuclear power plants, “says Giles Dickson, CEO of Wind Europe.

Six wind farms remained in the Netherlands; the same number as in 2017. One new turbine was activated last year. In the coming years there will be a number of large offshore wind farms.

In 2018 the 365 Dutch turbines totaled a capacity of 1,118 MW. This brings the percentage share of the Netherlands within Europe to 6 percent, comparable with the share of Belgium and Denmark.

In a number of European countries, decisions were taken on wind energy last year. Twelve new projects have to provide extra capacity for 4.2 gigawatts. The projects involved a total of € 10.3 billion in investments. The Netherlands invested € 1.4 billion to get 732MW extra online.