Countries bordering the North Sea dominate the global installed Offshore Wind leader board, with the United Kingdom’s installed base of 7 GW leading the global market, followed by Germany, China, Denmark and the Netherlands as members of the >1GW club.
Rank | Country | 2016 | 2017 |
1 | United Kingdom | 5,156 | 6,836 |
2 | Germany | 4,108 | 5,355 |
3 | China | 1,627 | 2,788 |
4 | Denmark | 1,271 | 1,271 |
5 | Netherlands | 1,118 | 1,118 |
6 | Belgium | 712 | 877 |
7 | Sweden | 202 | 202 |
8 | Vietnam | 99 | 99 |
9 | Finland | 32 | 92 |
10 | Japan | 60 | 65 |
The UK’s offshore wind sector has been boosted by changes in planning restrictions concerning on-shore energy capture, which is expected to gradually remove wind-turbines from wild areas as off-shore turbines reaching more efficient scales are more easily constructed at sea within negative impact on views, wildlife or protected landscapes.
And while the rise of wind energy continues, the change of location brings dramatically different maintenance overheads, increasing the focus on owners and Operations & Maintenance contractors to control costs, reliability, minimise downtime and pro-actively invest in protective measures.
MasterFilter’s hydraulic and lubricant protection systems can help, not only reducing solid particulate contaminants, but also removing water from fluid power systems – a valuable back-up to venting and breather systems.