Offshore wind industry expects further cost cuts, urges government to maintain expansion

Germany’s offshore wind energy industry expects a further drop in costs for new projects contracted by bidding processes, representatives of the industry said at a press conference of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE). “More practical experience and high expansion rates” caused prices to fall in recent years and are likely to continue to do so, Martin Skiba, from the German Wind Energy Foundation, said. While employment in the industry was projected to remain stable in the short term, reduced expansion rates determined by the government in the medium-run posed a danger to the stability of the country’s offshore wind-farming, the BWE warned. It also urged lawmakers to push ahead with lagging grid expansion, for which Skiba said there was “no alternative” in order to connect offshore projects to the mainland. Germany added 156 offshore windmills with a capacity of 818 megawatt (MW) to its power supply last year, bringing the total number of offshore windmills to 947 and generating capacity to 4,108 MW. Total power supply by offshore windmills amounted to 13 terawatt hours in 2016, a year-on-year increase of 57 percent.

Read the press release in German here.