Offshore wind energy in the world context

The interest for the exploitation of the offshore wind energy is growing in Europe, where man land use is very high resulting in strong limitation to the installation of onshore wind farms. The today offshore operating wind power is 12 MW, with two wind farms in Denmark and one in Netherlands; it starts to be significant (0.6%) in terms of the onshore power, 2000 MW in Europe. In the world the onshore installed wind power is exceeding 4000 MW, but not so much up to now has been done on the offshore area outside Europe. The European four years experience on the prototypical offshore wind farms looks significantly promising and suggests to promote a similar approach in many densely populated coastal countries in the world with high electricity demand. Results of studies are presented on the offshore wind potential in the European countries and of the tentative evaluation for the Mediterranean basin, and the seas of USA and China. A review is made of the offshore applications, particularly for the Nothern European seas. Economy and environmental trends are illustrated in parallel to those of maturing offshore technology. It is suggested to prepare an action plan to promote the development of the offshore applications in the world context.