China installed 3GW of offshore wind in 2020, half of new capacity built globally last year, according to figures from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
The UK remains in the top spot globally for total offshore wind capacity, while China has now overtaken Germany to become the world’s second largest offshore wind market by cumulative installed capacity, said GWEC.
The offshore wind industry installed just over 6GW of new capacity globally in 2020, nearly the same levels as the previous year despite the impacts of Covid-19 and the second-best year for the sector.
Steady growth in Europe, driven by the Netherlands, which installed 1.5GW, accounted for majority of the remaining new offshore wind installations in 2020, highlighted GWEC’s market intelligence report.
Total global offshore wind capacity is now over 35GW.
After the Netherlands, Belgium installed 706MW, the UK installed 483MW and Germany installed 237MW of new capacity in 2020.
The slowdown of growth in the UK is due to the gap between the Contracts for Difference (CfD) 1 and CfD 2.
In Germany, the slowdown is primarily caused by unfavourable conditions and a weak short-term offshore wind project pipeline.
The only new floating offshore wind capacity recorded in 2020 was also in Europe, with 17MW installed in Portugal.
Outside of China and Europe, two other countries recorded new offshore wind capacity in 2020, South Korea with 60MW) and the US with 12MW.
GWEC market intelligence and strategy head Feng Zhao said: “The continued growth of the offshore wind industry globally throughout the pandemic is a testament to the resilience of this booming industry.
“Although China was hit first by the Covid-19 crisis, the impacts on the offshore wind sector were minimal, resuming ‘busines-as-usual’ as early as March 2020.
“China’s record-breaking growth is expected to continue in 2021, driven by an offshore wind installation rush to meet China’s Feed-in-Tariff deadline by the end of this year.”