Julian Brown – chairman of British wind-ustry trade association Renewable
UK – has joined the board of 3-Sun Group as a non-executive director .
His role will be to work with the company’s chief executive Graham Hacon on
its strategy for future growth and international development.
Set up 20 years ago, 3-Sun Group has grown its business to 85% renewables
from 50% renewables, 50% oil & gas two years ago.
Brown – who is also co-founder and director of wind-power technical
consultancy Aarufield – said: “3-Sun is in a unique place and comes with no
baggage. It has carved a role for itself as a provider of skills and
delivering work on wind farms already in operation as well as in
installation and commissioning.”
Meanwhile, last year was a record year for offshore wind-ustry in Europe,
according to new statistics from WindEurope.
Europe installed 3.1 GW of new offshore wind, taking total capacity to 15.8
GW, an increase of 25% in just one year.
And 13 new offshore wind farms were completed, including the world’s first
floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland – in the Buchan Deep off
Peterhead.
The UK and Germany accounted for most of them, installing 1.7 GW and 1.3 GW
respectively. Europe now has over 4,000 offshore wind turbines operating
across 11 countries, making a total of 15.8 GW of installed and
grid-connected capacity.
The average size of the new turbines was 5.9 MW, a 23% increase on 2016.
And the average size of the new offshore wind farms was 493 MW, a 34%
increase in 2016. Capacity factors are increasing too. There are projects
in Europe operating already at capacity factors of 54% (Anholt 1, Denmark)
or even 65% (Dudgeon, UK).
A further 11 offshore wind farms are currently under construction, and
they’ll add another 2.9 GW. The project pipeline should then give us 25 GW
total by 2020.
The offshore wind-ustry in Europe remains heavily concentrated in a small
number of countries: 98% of it is in the UK, Germany, Denmark, the
Netherlands and Belgium.
A spokesman for Wind Europe said: “A 25% increase in one year is
spectacular. Offshore wind is now a mainstream part of the power system.
“And the costs have fallen rapidly. Investing in offshore wind today costs
no more than in conventional power generation.”
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