Forty Years of Wind Energy Development - Wind Power for the World: The Rise of Modern Wind Energy - page 29

The capacity of ofshore wind farms is growing fast, which
appears from the following figures:
• Average capacity of all wind farms (2011): 43 MW/project
• Average capacity of the 10 smallest older wind farms: 8 MW/
project
• Average capacity of the 10 biggest recent wind farms: 198
MW/project
Europe is heading for 280 GW by the year 2030 according to the
EC scenario and for 400 GW according to the EWEA by the year
2030.
Considering the capacity of wind power European countries
intend to realise ofshore, an area without any electrical infra-
structure, the need for a renewed approach of the electrical grid
becomes obvious. This need becomes even more urgent if the future
levels of variable output renewable energy sources are taken into
account. It specifically concerns wind, concentrated solar power
and hydro plants. As the lead times for extending the transport
grid are very long—10 years or even more—the construction of
the grid extension should have started 10 years ago in order to
meet the present needs. This however is not the case, which is a
perfect illustration of the most important bottleneck for further
extension of the ofshore wind energy capacity: the grid.
As the best onshore wind sites are being used up, ofshore wind
energy ofers the opportunity to fully exploit the European wind
energy resource. The ofshore potential is larger than all electricity
we need in Europe. The future developments in wind energy will
be dominated by ofshore developments. So we will see larger wind
turbines than the ones on the present market (see also Fig. 2.5). In
the further future we will see dedicated radical, extremely reliable
ofshore concepts which feature full integration of wind turbine,
support structure and installation technology. Despite the fact that
present wind energy R&D is driven by ofshore applications, that
research results will be applied to onshore turbines and to small
and medium-size turbines.
There will be a new market for the small wind turbine applica-
tions which I described in the beginning of this chapter and where
I started my career with. The needs are still there. The estimated
number of people in rural areas in developing countries who will
never be connected to an electricity grid has not decreased since