18 Facts About Offshore wind

Unlike the typical use of the term "offshore" in the marine industry, offshore wind power includes inshore water areas such as lakes, fjords and sheltered coastal areas as well as deeper-water areas.

In 2010, the US Energy Information Agency said "offshore wind power is the most expensive energy generating technology being considered for large scale deployment".

The 2010 state of offshore wind power presented economic challenges significantly greater than onshore systems, with prices in the range of 2.

In 2011, Ørsted estimated that while offshore wind turbines were not yet competitive with fossil fuels, they would be in 15 years.

The development of the full potential of Europe's offshore wind energy is one of the key actions in the Clean Energy section of the Green Deal.

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The offshore wind industry is not yet fully industrialized, as supply bottlenecks still exist as of 2017.

Economics of offshore wind farms tend to favor larger turbines, as installation and grid connection costs decrease per unit energy produced.

Maintenance of offshore wind farms is much more expensive than for onshore installations.

Similar access to offshore turbines involves driving to a dock or pier, loading necessary tools and supplies into boat, a voyage to the wind turbine, securing the boat to the turbine structure, transferring tools and supplies to and from boat to turbine and turbine to boat and performing the rest of the steps in reverse order.

Installation and operation of offshore wind turbines are regulated in both national and international law.

The maritime zone in which the offshore wind turbines are located determines which regulatory rules apply.

However, the advancing technology of floating Offshore wind turbines is a step towards the realization of deepwater Offshore wind projects.

HyOffshore wind is the world's first full-scale floating Offshore wind turbine, installed in the North Sea off Norway in 2009.

HyOffshore wind Scotland, commissioned in October 2017, is the first operational floating Offshore wind farm, with a capacity of 30 MW.

Since offshore wind turbines are located in oceans and large lakes, the materials used for the turbines have to be modified from the materials used for land based wind turbines and optimized for corrosion resistance to salt water and the new loading forces experienced by the tower being partially submerged in water.

Since offshore wind turbines are constantly exposed to salt and water, the steel used for the monopile and turbine tower must be treated for corrosion resistance, especially at the base of the tower in the “splash zone” for waves breaking against the tower and in the monopile.

Some wind farms located far from possible onshore bases have service teams living on site in offshore accommodation units.

Furthermore, in a few local cases there is evidence that offshore wind installations have contributed to the restoration of damaged ecosystems by functioning as artificial reefs.