Investment In Offshore Wind Quadruples

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented downturn in the economy, there has been over four times the investment in global offshore wind.

According to The Guardian, investors gave the go-ahead to 28 brand new offshore wind farms worth a total of £28bn in the first half of 2020, which is more than four times the amount invested in the first half of 2019, and over the total for 2019 as a whole.

This has more than made up for the downturn experienced by offshore wind and solar farm projects after the outbreak of the coronavirus.

Albert Cheung, Bloomberg NEF’s (BNEF) head of analysis, said: “We expected to see COVID-19 affecting renewable energy investment in the first half, via delays in the financing process and to some auction programmes. There are signs of that in both solar and onshore wind, but the overall global figure has proved amazingly resilient – thanks to offshore wind.”

Offshore wind has seen the biggest investments ever made. SSE’s Seagreen project in Scotland’s Firth of Forth is valued at $3.8bn, and the Hollandse Kust Zuid array off the coast of the Netherlands will cost Swedish energy giant Vattenfall $3.9bn

In China, 17 new offshore wind projects were approved during the first half of this year, including Guangdong Yudean Group’s $1.8bn plans to build the Yangjiang Yangxi Shapaat wind power project.

BNEF believes that there is an increase in offshore investment despite the economic downturn because of the two-thirds reduction in cost since 2012, and an urgency in China to complete offshore wind projects before the Chinese government’s subsidy deadline at the end of 2021.

China has also remained the world’s largest market for renewable energy, having gained a total investment of $41.6bn in 2020, which is up by 40 per cent year on year, thanks to the offshore wind boom.

There was a 50 per cent increase in investment in Europe, as renewable energy investment reached $36.5bn, and in the UK it reached $5.7bn, which is over three and half times greater than the early 2019 figures.

However, the US, India, and Brazil saw a drop in investments. There was a 30 per cent decrease in the US to $17.8bn, 50 per cent down in India to $2.7bn, and 25 per cent less in Brazil to $2.5bn.

After the International Energy Agency warned that investment in global energy would fall by $400bn, the biggest slump in the industry’s history, renewable energy has shown that is the most resilient area of the energy industry.

The chief editor of BNEF, Angus McCrone said that there would be a clearer picture of the impact of the pandemic on green energy with the release of the full year 2020 figures.

“Renewables have been helped by vastly improved competitiveness and by investor appetite for assets offering secure cash flows. However, project developers face the challenge that key people, whether at the permitting, financing or construction stages, can’t meet face-to-face. And buyers of small-scale solar systems are sensitive to changes in consumer confidence,” he said.

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