Offshore Wind taking off – some background on installation issues

Recent statistics have been published showing that Europe has now installed over 2,000MW of offshore wind capacity, with more than a quarter installed in the past year, and lots more to come in the next few years. I discussed these numbers in more detail here, but wanted to give you here some insights on what these numbers mean on the ground.

I recently visited the port site in Zeebrugge, Belgium, where the foundations for the Belwind offshore wind farm (the financing of which I worked on) were stored before their installation. This is a good opportunity to give you a glimpse of the kind of logistics involved, and what kind of problems can happen (and how they are solved), on offshore wind installations.

http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/6154