Thursday, October 31, 2019

Mapping Global Wind Power Potential



Despite growing by 30% in the last nine years offshore wind power still only provides 0.3% of electricity around the globe. Some countries, such as the UK, Germany and Denmark have recently added a lot of offshore wind power capacity. However there is still huge potential for offshore wind power around the world. In fact wind power has the potential to provide more than 18 times the global electricity demand today.

The IEA in collaboration with Imperial College London has assessed the potential for offshore wind development across the world. Alongside its report into the potential of wind power IEA has created an interactive map which shows where offshore wind has the highest technical potential and where the latest offshore wind projects are being built. The map in Offshore Wind Outlook 2019 uses four colors to show the areas of highest potential. These colors show areas in deep & shallow water and in regions far & near from shore.

The potential for offshore wind power generation is modeled using a number of variables, including wind speed and weather data from global reanalysis models.

No comments: