That’s how high the offshore wind turbines being installed today are. And Europe is installing more and more of them in its waters – 101 wind turbines were put up and grid connected in the first six months of 2011 alone.
EWEA’s newly released figures show they have a total of 348 MW of wind farm capacity – making a 4.5% increase on the offshore wind turbines put up in the first half of 2010. They are bigger than before, too, at an average 3.4 MW each – up from 2.9 MW last year.
All this new offshore wind power is bringing in money for Europe. Eleven offshore wind farms worth some €8.5 billion and with a total wind energy capacity of 2,844 MW are currently under construction in European waters. Financial institutions will this year provide a record amount of financing to the sector – over €3 billion.
As of 30 June 2011, there are 1,247 offshore wind turbines fully grid connected in Europe. They have a total wind energy capacity of 3,294 MW and are in 49 wind farm plants spread between nine countries.
Sarah Azau, blog.ewea.org
