Europe installed 1,558 MW of new offshore wind in 2016 with cumulative capacity reaching 12,631 MW. The industry announced a record €18.2 billion of investments in new wind farms to be built in the coming years.
This represents a further 4.9 GW of new capacity across five countries, half of it in the UK. Last year's 1.5 GW new installations were in 3 countries - Germany (813MW), the Netherlands (691 MW) and the UK (56 MW) - spread across 7 wind farms. They represent 338 wind turbines with an average size of 4.8 MW, up from 4.2 MW in 2015. Last year, saw the first 8 MW turbines deployed in the UK. We should see over 3GW of new installations in 2017. And we're set to reach 25 GW total capacity by 2020 - double today's level, according to Giles Dickson, Chief Executive Officer of WindEurope.
