Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Review

Why offshore wind energy?

M. Dolores Esteban, J. Javier Diez*, Jose S. Lpez, Vicente Negro
Universidad Politcnica de Madrid, C/Profesor Aranguren S/N, 28040 Madrid, Spain

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: At the beginning of 2010, only 2000 wind megawatts had been installed offshore. Although the rst
Received 17 May 2010 offshore wind farm experiment took place in 1990, most of the facilities built up to now have been pilot
Accepted 14 July 2010 projects. Then, offshore wind power can be considered as an incipient market. However, just at this
Available online 14 August 2010
moment, the growth of this technology nally seems to be happening, being several countries at the top
of its development (the United Kingdom, Denmark, Holland, Sweden and Germany). This current situ-
Keywords:
ation, the raw materials problems and the general commitments to reduce the emissions of greenhouse
Offshore wind power
gases are leading to predict a promising future for this technology. This paper deals with a brief revision
Renewable energy
Conventional energy
of the state of the art of offshore wind power, followed by a critical discussion about the causes of the
Global warming recently growth that is currently happening. The discussion is based on the comparison of offshore wind
Greenhouse gases energy with other renewable energies (like onshore wind, marine hydrodynamics, hydraulic, solar, etc.)
and even with conventional power.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Although the origin of offshore wind energy dates from the
nineties of the last century, the growth of this technology is just
Several factors have been the key ones to push renewable beginning to happen in different ways depending on the country,
energies, being the most important ones the attribution of the and according to several decisive factors: the limited space in land
global warming to the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission from the for the development of onshore wind farms because of the
combustion of fossil fuels, the concern about the reduction of these competing site usage, the less general environmental impact
emissions by means of the introduction of greenhouse gases caused by offshore wind energy, etc.
emissions limits (Kyoto Protocol) and the search for energy security, There are in fact reasons to expect the optimistic development
together with the aversion to the traditional ssion nuclear power of offshore wind. This paper tries to explain the main reasons, based
and the lack of progression in the application of the fusion nuclear on a summary and revision of the state of the art, and on the
power. Moreover, the increase of energy demand for the last years discussion about the different technologies to produce electricity
and its recovery increase expected when the economical crisis will and their relative efciency and opportunities, differentiating
nish (see Fig. 1), lead to a higher renewable energy push. between conventional and renewable sources, and even among the
Wind energy has been the renewable power most used up to different renewable sources.
now, mainly by means of onshore installations. This selective
progress can be explained due to both the high wind resource
availability and the high technology maturity of wind energy in 2. State of the art relating to offshore wind energy
comparison with the rest of renewable energies. These two reasons
are likely the causes because the wind energy is considered Wind energy has been recognized as one of the key renewable
essential to achieve the commitments acquired in the Kyoto energy sources, and its main development has been through the
Protocol. Anyway, the commitments success will require carrying construction of onshore wind farms, having installed only 2000
out several measures simultaneously [2], being one of them the offshore wind megawatts (MW) at the end of the year 2009.
push of the construction of offshore wind farms. Specically, the rst wind turbine in the sea was set up in
Sweden in 1990. This facility was formed by a single 220 kW
(kilowatts) wind turbine, located 350 m from the coast, and sup-
ported on a tripod structure anchored to the seabed about 6 m
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 34 913365384.
E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (M.D. Esteban),
deep.
[email protected] (J.J. Diez), [email protected] (J.S. Lpez), vnegro@ Between 1991 and 1998, experimental low rating projects were
caminos.upm.es (V. Negro). carried out whose different models of wind turbines and different

0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.07.009
 M.D. Esteban et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450 445

Fig. 1. (a) Energy demand around the world in the year 2007. (b) Energy demand forecasting in the year 2030 [1].

types of foundations were tested. Wind turbines of 450e600 kW As a result of this, offshore wind farms are beginning to take part
units rating were used for these projects, and distances of up to of the sea and coastal landscape in some countries, being located in
4 km from the coast and depths of up to 6 m were reached. dynamic and changing surroundings. An integral management
Although certain doubts were initially raised, these facilities model therefore needs to be applied enabling not only the technical
showed good protability and reliability indices. and nancial feasibility of the offshore wind farm project to be
Multimegawatt wind turbines were brought in later, in a second achieved, but also respect for the environment.
experimental phase, having been the Utgrunden project, built in As an essential part of this state of the art exposition, the
Sweden in 2000, the rst project with those characteristics. Several evolution of offshore wind power since 1990 up to 2007 is exposed
of these facilities marked the commencement of the rst in the Fig. 3, and the distribution of this power among the different
commercial wind farms: Blyth, Middelgrunden and Yttre Sten- countries is shown in the Fig. 4.
grund. Later, the Horns Rev and Nysted facilities, both on Danish In the next future, it is expected a huge increase of the offshore
coasts, were the conrmation of this type of facilitys adaptation to wind power installed, not only in the already experimented
the marine environment. countries, but also in another countries like France, Spain [4]. While
As from then, facilities of this type have continued being built.
And in fact, it is essential to push the use of offshore wind energy
(see Fig. 2) to achieve the commitments acquired in the Kyoto
Protocol.
As it has been exposed before, the growth of offshore wind
power is currently happening in different ways depending on the
country. This can be explained because of several decisive factors:
the different environment of the different countries e as the lack of
land space in some countries for the development of onshore wind
farms, sometimes due to the competing site usage, the expected
minor general environmental impact with offshore wind farms in
comparison with onshore wind farms, the government support, etc.
[3]. For example, while Holland has not practically free space in
land for this kind of installations, in the United Kingdom and
Denmark there are a public opposition to onshore wind farms and, Fig. 2. Comparison between the potential of onshore and offshore wind energy in
as a consequence of this, there is an important push for offshore different depths, and the energy demand in Europe. This graphic shows the need to
wind energy [4]. push offshore wind energy [5].
446 M.D. Esteban et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450

Fig. 3. Growth of the offshore wind energy capacity since 1990 to 2007 [6].

Fig. 5. Different theories about the expected development of offshore wind power in
Europe [4].
some of these countries have suitable coastal characteristics for
offshore wind farm installations, not all of them; for example, the
Spanish coastal platform is very slope, and the seabed is very depth In those years, a general interest about the adjustment of fusion
close to the coast in comparison with other countries like Germany. nuclear power existed. The passage of time has made evident the
In fact, there are several theories e all of them with optimist error about the fusion power expectative, and renewed the demand
perspectives e about the evolution of the offshore wind power for the ssion power. And, on the other hand, the objections about
installed (see Fig. 5). hydropower and maritime installations were reduced.
All that leads to the push of renewable energy (including
3. Discussion hydropower), which can already be considered as part of the
current electricity market, although not in a general way. As has
This discussion goes from the most general to the most detailed been exposed before, several are being the key reasons to push
issues, and it is organized in three sub-sections: 1) comparison renewable energies, being one of them the reduction of the carbon
between renewable and conventional energies, 2) comparison dioxide emissions to the atmosphere.
between wind energy and other types of renewable energies, and This implies that renewable energies let to achieve additional
3) comparison between offshore and onshore wind energy. energy security because of the use of the own resources of a region,
being able these ones to answer in a relative way to the increase of
the cost energy of the raw materials that are not controlled at all by
3.1. Renewable vs. conventional energy this region. Besides, another advantage of renewable energies is the
no contribution in a signicant way to the emissions of carbon
Nowadays, the electricity market is based on the use of dioxide (see Fig. 6), leaving the Earth almost intact for next
conventional or traditional energy technologies, being important generations.
also the participation of hydropower. Nevertheless, some of these In the decision-making about investments, energy industry is
technologies came into crisis lately. Firstly, fossil fuel-based ones supported on the use of economical models to calculate and
came into crisis (oil crisis in the years 1973 and 1979); secondly, compare the energy cost of the different technologies. The most
ssion nuclear energy came also into crisis although not in such used ones are related with the levelized cost of power, which
a general way as the fossil fuel-based technology. In fact, the depends on capital cost, operating costs and fuel costs. In the Figs. 7
opposition to the use of fossils was established depending on the and 8, the comparison between the levelized cost of different
countries and policy factors; thirdly, hydropower also fell into technologies and the forecast for different years is exposed, and it
crisis, which was justied by an environmental attitude that can be observed the scarce difference between the relative to
appeared due to the lack of conservative criteria for the use of onshore wind and the conventional technologies. Also, it is
hydrological resources. The classic large hydropower projects were important to take into account that some of these technologies,
stopped, but also the development of small-scale hydropower. mainly the renewable ones, are capital intensive but have low
operational costs, while fossil fuel-based technologies may be
cheaper to construct but much more expensive to operate [8].

Fig. 4. Distribution of the offshore wind megawatts in operation in the different

countries at the beginning of the year 2009 [7]. Fig. 6. Lifetime emissions of carbon dioxide for various power generation technologies [8].
 M.D. Esteban et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450 447

electricity transmission and distribution delivery networks to

accommodate intermittent sources of electricity) [10].
Figs. 10 and 11 show the ranking of the different technologies,
both currently and in the future, and it can be observed the
expectation about the prospect rapprochement between conven-
tional and renewable energies, being essential the investments in
the last ones to achieve it.

3.2. Wind energy vs. other renewable energies

Wind energy has been clearly the fastest in its development

among all the renewable energies (see Fig. 12), although in this
statement hydropower must not be taken into account because of
its different origin and way of development in comparison with the
other ones. Estimations suggest that global wind energy could
generate between 20,000 TWh and 50,000 TWh of electricity each
year; and to put that into some perspective, annual global elec-
tricity consumptions in 2004 was around 17,000 TWh. Anyway,
note that a recent estimate establishes the global offshore resource
around 37,000 TWh [12].
The importance of wind energy in comparison with other types
of renewable technologies could be explained due to the combi-
Fig. 7. Comparative levelized costs of different generating technologies [9]. nation of two factors: the availability of resources and the maturity
of the technology in term of cost efciency. Regarding the rst one,
it is clear the huge availability of wind energy, but also of solar,
wave and current, much more than geothermal, small-scale
The levelized cost can be understood as the rst analysis for the
hydropower and biomass. And regarding the second one, the
discussion about the economic issues of the different technologies
maturity of wind energy is high because this has been used since
to generate electricity. However, it is important to take into account
olden times in many economic activities: sailing, irrigation, milling,
the risk related with the difculty to estimate the uctuation of the
etc., having not so a long evolution other technologies like solar,
cost of the raw materials for the operation of some of these tech-
wave and currents.
nologies, mainly the fossil fuel ones. On the other hand, there are
Although the push of offshore wind power is clear, and wind
several factors than can distort the energy cost, which are the
technology should take the opportunity of the advantages achieved
subsidies (related to the economic incentives xed by the govern-
onshore to move forward in the sea as soon as possible, it would be
ments to push a specic power generation technology, modifying
necessary to push the rest of the technologies (wave, currents, etc.)
the offer and demand market. Subsidies are related to the economic
to achieve a similar evolution as the wind one, although more
incentives xed by the governments to push a specic power
concentrated in time. This only will be possible with the govern-
generation technology, modifying the offer and demand market.
ment support looking for research projects and experimental
Nowadays, renewable energies need from economic incentives to
installations. Regarding the levelized cost (See Fig. 7), nowadays
push the companies to invest in those kinds of technologies, but not
onshore wind is close to the conventional technologies, but
in the same range depending on the technology), the externalities
offshore is still far, and more even the marine hydrodynamic ones;
(related to the cost for the society because the use of a specic
but in the future it is expected the distances will be reduced.
technology, and often are ignored. These include the cost to take
into account factors such as the environmental degradation, the
deteriorating human health, which some technologies incur, the 3.3. Offshore vs. onshore wind energy
security of fuel supply, etc. e see Fig. 9) and the structural costs
(related to the costs of adapting conventionally structured In 2007, it was the rst time that wind energy achieved the 1% of
the electricity generated in the world [8], almost all of them cor-
responding to onshore wind farms. In fact, there were only
2000 MW installed offshore at the end of 2009, certainly a symbolic
amount. As it has been exposed in the state of the art, offshore wind
energy is being pushed differently depending on the countries and

Fig. 8. Future levelized cost comparison between different technologies, between 2010 Fig. 9. External costs for various power generation technologies within the Europe
and 2030 [11]. Union [6].
448 M.D. Esteban et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450

Fig. 10. The relative competitiveness of power generation technologies in 2005, 2008
and 2018 [8].

Fig. 12. Annual global wind capacity additions and cumulative installed capacity, in
the policy approaches. In general, the current growth of offshore MW, between 1980 and 2007 [8].
wind energy might be explained on the basis of several deter-
mining factors, being the most important ones the lack of space in
land in some countries for the development of onshore wind farms, turbine diameter is that whose rotating blades are above the
sometimes due to the competing site usage, the expected general maximum wave height at the site). The characteristics of the layer
minor impact in the environment with offshore wind farms in of turbulent air adjacent to the ground and to the sea surface allow
comparison with onshore ones, the government support, etc. Also, the offshore turbine to be mounted lower than the equivalent
the combination of resources availability and technology maturity onshore machine.
of offshore wind is closer to onshore wind than other renewable The second advantage becomes from the bigger suitable free
technologies. As a result, offshore wind farms are beginning to form areas in the sea where offshore wind farms can be installed, leading
part of the sea and coastal landscape. to greater installations. Its placement (far from population areas)
The main difference between onshore and offshore wind lets to reduce the environmental regarding the noise emission,
installations is on their respective environment, which are much nearly all related with the increase of the blade-spit speed. Also,
more complex in the sea not only for the design but also for the this large distance allows, in some cases, to reduce the visual
construction and operation works, because of the signicant impact from the coast. All of these statements, together with the
increase of the factors that can condition all of them. In the not such strict limitations in connection with the load to transport,
following paragraphs, the most emphasized advantages and make possible to install bigger wind turbine units, achieving more
disadvantages of the offshore wind technology in comparison with production per install unit.
the onshore one are exposed [13e17]. On the contrary, the rst disadvantage is the cost of the
The rst advantage is the better quality of the wind resource in permitting and engineering process, and of the construction and
the sea, where wind speed is usually bigger, even increasing with operation phases. In onshore wind farms, the cost of wind gener-
the distance to the coast, and more uniform (softer), leading to less ator turbines is around 75% total cost of the Project, being this
turbulence effects; therefore the fatigue is less important and let to percentage in offshore installations approximately 33%, which can
increase the lifetime of the offshore wind turbine generator. Other be explained as mainly due to the high costs of the sea operations.
considerations due to the quality relates to the height at which Besides, unlike onshore wind farms, there are not usually marine
a wind turbine is placed (the optimum height for a given offshore electrical infrastructures that connect the highest wind resource
areas with the consumer centers, leading to the construction of
longer electrical networks, and even to strengthen the existing
electrical infrastructures.
The offshore wind farm cost per megawatt was estimated, some
years ago, around 2 MV/MW (see Fig. 13), much more than in
offshore wind farms. Nevertheless, this cost has increased and
nowadays, some offshore wind installations are around 4 MV/MW
[18], increase that can be justied because of the learning process
still happening.
A second disadvantage is the necessity of a more developed
offshore wind farms technology. This is essential for the wind
turbine generators (usually similar to onshore ones, but some
research projects are trying to decide which is the most suitable
wind turbine generator type for offshore wind farm, especially with
oating foundation), which will be subjected to high loads and
must to adapt themselves to the marine environment and, there-
fore, to be prepared for the corrosion conditions; also in the
foundations, in the marine operations because of the importance of
accessibility restrictions and the difculties existing to work in this
environment during the construction and operation phases, etc.
And a third disadvantage is that, due to the limited roughness of
the sea surface, the turbulences propagation are higher offshore
Fig. 11. The relative competitiveness of power generation technologies in 2008 and than onshore; then wake effects provoked by the own wind turbine
2018 [8]. generators are very important leading to a big impact over the
 M.D. Esteban et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 444e450 449

Fig. 13. Evolution of cost per megawatt installed offshore in the United Kingdom [19].

lifetime of the wind turbines. To reduce it, the wind turbines must feasible technology yet; it still requires in fact the technical and
be disposed obeying a minimum separation among them. Also the economical support by Public Administration Agencies for its
wind resource evaluation is much more complex and expensive development. The main offshore wind power development focus is
than onshore. in North Europe, where countries like the United Kingdom and
So that although it is evident the difference between the cost of Germany are pushing this technology, taking so the opportunity to
onshore and offshore wind power, some efforts have to be made to push also their national industries.
push the offshore wind technology, and there will be necessary the It is necessary to push this technology to achieve the goals
improvements of knowledge in several issues like wind turbines, established in the Kyoto Protocol. This is due to the resources
foundations, construction and operation phases, etc. availability and the technology maturity, in term of cost efciency
in comparison with other renewable technologies. In fact, the
4. Conclusions future of this technology can be understood as promising, and it is
expected that offshore wind farms are going to begin to form part of
Science and technology have served to the political power, or the sea and coastal landscape.
have changed it, for too long time: then these must collaborate Besides, some R&D efforts will have to be made regarding the
changing the whole consumption paradigm, so that sun light, marine hydrodynamics technologies (wave, tidal and current
ocean movements and winds is becoming in necessary power power) because of its short development up to now, looking to
sources. achieve a similar maturity as the wind energy; only so, these
Offshore wind power is undoubtedly going to constitute an renewable sources will be able to take part of the electricity market
increasing source of power since now, in accordance with the farm in the future. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to cover.
settlement feasibility and the improving management capability.
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