Despite a buoyant European offshore wind market, developers are facing into a whole bundle of purchasing headaches due to the seemingly limited number of suppliers in the offshore wind energy business.
The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says 9.3 gigawatt (GW) of new wind power capacity was installed in the EU during 2010 with offshore wind power installations growing 51 per cent from 582MW in 2009 to 883MW last year. With further projects in the pipeline from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and most recently France, Europe will continue to be the largest offshore wind energy-producing region in the world for years to come.
Utility-led projects are the lynchpin of the offshore wind industry’s continuing progress. Justin Wilkes, Director of Policy at EWEA noted: “Projects led by utilities are less affected thanks to their ability to fund investments from their balance sheets”.
However, utility scale developers at the forefront will be seeking out only companies capable of providing and meeting the necessary challenges imposed on the industry today.
RWE Innogy, Vattenfall Wind Power, DONG, Mainstream Renewable Power, REpower, Alstom Wind, GE Energy, GAMESA, and many more leading offshore wind industry companies will meet this march in London to discuss, debate and appraise the latest offshore supply chain strategies to reduce costs, optimize efficiency, and improve overall ROI.
