The newly-elected Labour government – as part of its plans to transform the UK into a ‘clean energy superpower’ – wants to drastically expand renewables capacity, which includes quadrupling offshore wind capacity to 52 GW by 2030. It has also pledged to bring forward the country’s net zero emissions target from 2050 to 2030, in a bid to tackle climate change and create high-quality green jobs.
This is welcome news to the wind industry, of course – but there are challenges to overcome first. Public resistance to onshore wind farms (the ‘Nimby’ threat) is the most well-known, of course. However, there are other fundamental issues around the lifecycle of wind turbines, and collaboration between industry partners that must be addressed if wind energy is to be sustainable in all senses of the word.
Offshore wind is set for huge growth in the UK
Maintaining profits across the supply chain
There’s no denying that the capex costs associated with building wind farms, particularly offshore or remote ones, are high.
That’s not stopped the government from moving ahead with plans to start building; in fact, a new deal with Crown Estate to build wind farms on the UK’s seabeds was the first announcement from the newly-formed Great British Energy in July.
Wind power is generally profitable for operators, thanks to government subsidies, as well as investment from pensions and other funds, and the fact that the price of power is holding steady (in the UK, at least). The problem though, is that this profitability isn’t always seen on the manufacturing side because wind turbines are so expensive to produce.
One reason for this is the sheer size of the components that make up modern turbines. Bigger turbines are more effective at producing energy, which can reduce costs for operators and end users. However, they also create logistical challenges that often fall to manufacturers and distributors, including OEMs and suppliers of components and subcomponents.
Blades are, for the most part, still manufactured in one piece – but these larger models still have to be manufactured, quality tested, installed and transported like any other. We can’t change the roads to accommodate them, so people are now coming up with modular ways to transport and install them so that those cost benefits associated with bigger turbines can be realised.
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