China, the European Union and the UK operate the most offshore wind farms in the world. This was the result of an evaluation of satellite data by the German Aerospace Center (DLR). Using artificial intelligence, the researchers not only determined the number and locations of the plants, but also the development of recent years, the performance and the emergence of new plants.
The analysis of satellite images made it possible for the first time to get a global overview of the offshore wind energy sector. Time series from the Sentinel-1 radar satellite of the European Space Agency since 2016 were used for the analysis. The Sentinel-1 mission is characterized by a continuous repetition of the recordings within a few days. To automatically read offshore wind turbines from the vast Sentinel-1 archive, which yielded more than 11 petabytes of data in 2021 alone, the scientists trained a neural network to recognize wind turbines.
Most plants off the coast of China
Result: As of June 2021, 3,267 offshore wind turbines were in operation in China, 3,096 in the EU and 2,378 in Great Britain. Worldwide 8885 turbines were counted. The EU led the way in output, with offshore wind turbines in the North Sea and Baltic Sea, Irish Sea and Atlantic Ocean off Portugal reaching 15.2 gigawatts (GW). At the time, the Chinese factories had 14.1 GW, the British 10.7 GW.
„All told, this is about 98.5 percent of the 40.6 GW of offshore wind energy installed worldwide by June 2021,” said Thorsten Höser of Germany’s Remote Sensing Data Center (DFD) in a statement. By way of comparison, the three nuclear power plants still in operation in Germany have a total installed capacity of 4.3 GW.
Huge expansion in China
“A look at the dynamics over time shows that China’s entry into the offshore wind energy sector and the construction of offshore wind farms in Chinese waters in particular influenced the expansion dynamics,” explains Höser. According to the data collected, 627 new turbines were under construction there by the middle of last year, compared to only 63 off the EU coasts. Seven existing offshore wind turbines were counted off the US coast. The evaluation did not cover onshore wind turbines.
“Offshore wind turbines are an important building block for net-zero greenhouse gas production while supporting national efforts for self-sufficient energy production independent of coal and natural gas. They have the advantage that they are set up in locations where high and constant wind speeds prevail,” explains Claudia Künzer from DFD.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
