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The world is far from reaching its offshore wind capacity installation targets amid rising costs and canceled lease sales, analysts and government and industry representatives have told Reuters.
Last year, governments set a goal to triple overall renewable energy capacity by 2030. Currently, the world is off track to reach these goals, and much of the shortfall could be in the offshore wind energy sector, where expensive projects have become even more expensive over the past two years.
To help triple renewable capacity, offshore wind capacity needs to jump to as much as 494 gigawatts (GW) by 2030, up from 73 GW now, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) has estimated.
But this goal is likely to be missed, IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera and analysts at Wood Mackenzie told Reuters.
“We’re pretty far away from these targets,” Soren Lassen, head of offshore wind research at WoodMac, told Reuters in an interview published on Monday.
Offshore wind farms have seen costs surge by 30-40% over the past two years and the average cost of $230 per MWh is now triple the average onshore wind cost of about $75 per MWh, Lassen added.
As a result, companies and governments are rethinking offshore wind strategies.
Supermajor BP, for example, is reportedly considering a potential sale of a minority stake in its offshore wind business in a move to reduce spending on project developments in the sector.
Earlier this month, the Swedish government rejected plans for the construction of 13 offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea, citing defense risks and protecting its national security.
In the U.S., President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to scrap offshore wind, on day one.
The world’s progress to reach the goal of tripling renewables capacity by 2030 is falling short and needs another tripling, of investments, from $570 billion in 2023 to $1.5 trillion every year between 2024 and 2030, IRENA said in a report last month.
