Offshore Wind

Every month, POWER magazine publishes several articles in its Global Monitor section covering topics important to the electric power generation industry. The articles typically feature interesting updates on progress made at notable projects around the world, big policy changes, or promising research and development (R&D) news. Short notes about major contracts are also touched on […]

Vattenfall, the Sweden-based multinational power company, will build and operate Finland’s first gigascale offshore wind farm as part of a joint venture with Finnish state-owned seabed and forest management group Metsähallitus. The project announced Dec. 20 is the 1.3-GW Korsnäs plant in the Bay of Bothnia, which sits between Sweden and Finland in the Baltic […]

The world’s oil and gas majors, along with some of the largest utility companies, continue to invest in renewable energy as they develop diversified power generation project portfolios. Among the latest is

The UK has a broad plan to develop a hydrogen economy as a feature of its commitment to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Energy analysts have said hydrogen not only could fuel the country’s

Two Chinese companies announced production of the largest offshore wind turbine built to date, a 16-MW unit developed by China Three Gorges (CTG) and Goldwind. The groups on Nov. 24 showed off the turbine at a factory in Fujian province. The turbine has a 252-meter rotor diameter, with a 50,000-meter sweep area. The hub height […]

An installation that at present is considered the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm has produced its first power, providing electricity for oil and gas exploration operations in the North Sea. Hywind Tampen on Nov. 13 began powering Equinor’s drilling at the Gullfaks oil and gas field. The wind farm is located about 87 miles […]

A pilot project in the waters off China, featuring two floating solar power arrays connected to a transformer on a moored offshore wind turbine, will test the viability of the technology in an area prone to typhoons. China’s government-owned State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) on Nov. 1 announced it had commissioned the project, calling it […]

A company that has corporate roots that go back to the Colonial era, Dominion Energy has been shaped by acquisitions and market forces. It is now in the midst of an extraordinary transformation to expand its

OCT. 20, 2022 — Equinor today confirmed it has chartered Seacat Columbia (built in 2022), a new BARTech 30 crew transfer vessel (CTV), from Seacat Services, for operations at its operated offshore wind farms in Norfolk. Seacat Columbia is a UK-designed, built, flagged, owned and operated CTV, and the contract with Equinor has sustained 12 […]

The U.S. government has announced the first-ever sale of offshore wind development rights off the California coast. The Dept. of Interior (DOI) on Oct. 18 said it would hold the event on Dec. 6, in an effort to spur industry growth in the waters of the Pacific Ocean. The agency said the sale will include […]

A new report from a business group that supports development of U.S. offshore wind projects details several factors that it says will contribute to a “historic expansion” of the technology over the next several years. The Business Network for Offshore Wind’s inaugural “Offshore Wind Quarterly Market Report,” released Oct. 13, highlights how recent government actions […]

The Biden administration announced a goal of installing as much as 15 GW of floating offshore wind energy capacity by 2035, and said it plans to auction off leases to support project development by the end of this year. The Sept. 15 announcement touted both the potential of offshore wind and its impact on reducing […]

A new study from business and environmental researchers at Oxford University disputes the notion that a strategy to transition global power generation toward renewable energy and away from fossil fuels is too expensive to pursue. The study, released Sept. 13 and published in the journal Joule, reports that decarbonizing the world’s energy systems would save […]

Japan’s ambitions to install up to 10 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 have made rapid progress over the past month, driven partly by accelerated action to address a supply and demand mismatch. Weeks after

Again, this year, Experience POWER will be co-located with the Distributed Energy Conference (DEC) and HydrogeNext, giving attendees the opportunity to learn from and network with trailblazers from the power industry, who are leading the way in the world’s energy transition. These three events cover the full energy value chain for the power industry, delivering […]

President Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) should provide further impetus for growth of U.S. renewable energy, coming on the heels of a report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that installations of solar and wind power accounted for more than two-thirds of new domestic utility-scale generation in the first six months […]

Lofty goals have been established in the U.S. for the offshore wind industry. The U.S. Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and Department of Commerce announced a national goal in March 2021 to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. That would mark a significant increase from the 42 MW of offshore […]

California officials have taken a major step toward establishing the state’s offshore wind energy industry, setting a goal of installing as much as 5 GW of generation capacity this decade, and 25 GW by 2045. The California Energy Commission (CEC) on Aug. 10 put out a report detailing the state’s plan for offshore wind, which […]

AVANGRID announced it has finalized a deal to operate and manage the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind project, an 800-MW installation being built off the coast of Massachusetts. Vineyard Wind 1 is owned in a joint venture between AVANGRID, part of the Iberdrola Group, and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners. Construction of what would be the first […]

Emerson Involved in Coal-to-Biomass Switch. Albioma, a French independent energy provider, is working with Emerson, a global technology and software company, on the transition of the Bois Rouge 108-MW

Vietnamese officials said a U.S. utility company plans to develop a $13 billion, 4-GW offshore wind farm that would be sited off that country’s central province of Binh Thuan. Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade in a statement issued July 29 said AES Corp., a Virginia-based utility that operates in 15 countries, is behind the […]

The inclusion of an estimated $369 billion in energy security and climate change investments in a July 27–unveiled U.S. Senate budget reconciliation proposal has prompted optimism from a range of energy sectors. Less than two weeks after negotiations on clean energy and climate provisions within the reconciliation package hit an impasse and suggested their demise, […]

The Biden administration’s push to accelerate offshore wind deployment formally expanded into the Gulf of Mexico as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) on July 20 unveiled two draft wind energy areas (WEAs) off the coast of Galveston, Texas, and Lake Charles, Louisiana. The sites represent a “small subset” of its original 30-million Gulf […]

German energy giant RWE will in September acquire Vattenfall’s 1.4-GW Magnum combined cycle gas-fired power station, a project in the Netherlands where work is underway to explore converting one of the three

Offshore wind projects have been bolstered by federal and state initiatives that support the technology to achieve emissions-reduction goals. However, development and grid integration of these projects

Swedish-based renewable energy developer OX2 has taken another step toward construction of its Aurora offshore wind farm, a 5.5-GW project sited between the islands of Gotland and Oland in the Baltic Sea. OX2 on June 27 announced it had submitted a permit application to build the wind farm under the auspices of Sweden’s Exclusive Economic […]

Siemens Gamesa has been awarded the firm order for the delivery of 60 units of its SG 14-222 DD offshore wind turbine at the Moray West offshore wind power project. The wind turbines will have a capacity of 14.7 MW each and utilize the PowerBoost feature. A service agreement is included in the order for […]

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is arriving in a most timely manner to help resolve the world’s energy trilemma—the transition to net-zero, energy security, and energy affordability. For many years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been at the forefront of discussions on climate change and the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Below, I outline our key takeaways […]

Twenty20 Energy Will Build Gas-Fired Plant in Papua New Guinea. Singapore-based Twenty20 Energy Systems in April announced it would design and build a new gas-fired power plant in Hela province, Papua New

As a clean and renewable power source, wind offers massive potential for alleviating some of the growing challenges that countries worldwide are looking to address through the development of new forms of energy generation. At ABB, we look at how developments in electrical system design are helping to turn wind into a major source of […]