The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and the World Bank will work together to support development of offshore wind in emerging markets.
GWEC will coordinate with the World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program (ESMAP) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) on efforts to speed up the uptake of offshore wind in emerging markets.
As part of the cooperation, a World Bank Group representative will sit on the GWEC Offshore Wind Task Force and contribute to the activities of that group, while a GWEC representative will also sit on an advisory committee to be set up by the bank.
ESMAP is a partnership between the World Bank and 18 partners to help low and middle-income countries reduce poverty and boost growth, through environmentally sustainable energy.
The IFC is the world’s largest global development institution focused exclusively on the private sector in developing countries.
The collaboration follows on from the World Bank’s launch of a new programme accelerating the adoption of offshore wind energy in developing countries, supported by funding from the UK government.
The World Bank and GWEC will organise a series of workshops and other events to discuss the potential of offshore wind in new and emerging markets as part of their cooperation.
GWEC chief executive Ben Backwell said: “GWEC’s Offshore Wind Taskforce was established to help an increasing number of countries provide large-scale, competitive clean power from offshore wind that can help them meet their climate commitments and their sustainable development objectives.
“The cooperation with the World Bank Group is a significant step forward in this journey. Through knowledge-sharing and partnership, we can better achieve our shared vision for development through sustainable energy.”
Recently released preliminary data from GWEC’s Global Wind Report showed that in 2018, new offshore installations of 4.49GW led the global offshore market to reach a total installed capacity of 23GW.
For the first time, China installed more offshore capacity than any other market, with 1.8GW, followed by the UK with 1.3GW.