Compared to Bangladesh's $4.5b planned investment in developing coal-fired power generation with Japanese assistance at the shore of Bay of Bengal, the move by the Dutch power grid to build wind power hub at North Sea at a cost of $1.8b is apparently extraordinary. The project aims to establish an offshore wind farm to generate staggering amount of power: 30 GWs--more than twice of today's total installed offshore wind power across the whole of Europe. As it has been reported by the Guardian, if all goes well, the earliest the project could be operational is 2027.
With the target of turning off all coal-fired power plants by 2025, this power hub offers the opportunity to multiple European countries to enjoy the benefit of technology to access electrical power at cheaper price than coal generated power, causing virtually no emission, and also in a sustainable manner.
With the rapid growth of manufacturing jobs, developing countries are ramping up investment in electrical power generation. The cost of power and also the effect on environment are two important parameters to consider in deciding about massive investments in power projects, having a lifetime of more than 30 years.
As opposed to the rapid growth of demand of power being faced by developing countries, advanced countries are busy to phase out their existing dirty power generation capacities with cleaner energy sources.
And it has been found that wind is showing a strong potential to be a cheaper and cleaner alternative. Industry's progress in establishing financially viable offshore wind farms is strengthening the potential further by mitigating local opposition to onshore farms.
As it has been reported, various leading industry experts and publications have estimated that the cost of producing energy using wind has dropped to around EUR 100/MWh. At this price, wind as the energy source is almost as cost-effective as conventional coal and nuclear energy in most markets.
Moreover, overall for wind energy, there has been a rapid reduction in price over the last three years, falling almost 27 per cent annually since 2014, with expected further reduction. Of course, the actual reduction depends on a number of factors including the location, available turbine, cable, scale, and converter technology.
The steady reduction of cost makes wind power a major victory for renewable energy because it makes the power source attractive economically and environmentally, which is crucial for its widespread adoption.
Globally electrical energy production from wind has been growing exponentially reaching the worldwide total cumulative installed electricity generation capacity from wind power to 486 GWby the end of 2016; this is an increase of 12.5 per cent compared to the previous year.
Across the world the wind energy sector is booming. In reference to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) figures, Renewable Energy World has reported that clean energy investments during second quarter of 2017 reached US$64.8 billion globally, up 21 per cent.
And of that amount, wind energy accounted for US$26.2 billion in new investments over the second quarter in 2017.
For certain countries, wind energy is bringing huge gains for consumers. For example, Germany generated enough wind power at one of the weekends in October 2017 to give consumers free energy. Bloomberg reported that power prices in Germany turned negative as storm pushed wind output to 39.4 GWs in October, 2017. Germany appears to be at the top meeting 61 per cent of electricity demand from wind.
Wind Europe, which promotes wind power in Europe and globally, reported that European wind energy broke a new record on October 28, 2017 meeting over 24 per cent of the EU's electricity demand.
Among Asian countries, China has rapidly become a global leader in wind energy and now ranks fourth in the world in installed capacity. According to a recent report of World Watch Institute, wind power alone could provide electricity for all of China, if appropriate steps are taken.
The reported analysis determined that wind energy could replace 640 GWs of coal-fired power by 2030 in China. With the completion of installation of 23 GWs in 2016, China's cumulative total wind generation capacity reached 168.7 GWs.
It's also being reported that over the next ten years, China is expected to install an annual average of more than 25 GWs of new wind capacity, resulting in a cumulative growth across the decade reaching over 400 GWs by 2027.
Among developing countries, India's progress is notable. In 2017, India added 3.8 GW in new capacity, bringing the cumulative installed capacity to 32.5 GWs.
In most of the South Asian countries, wind energy is mostly unexplored. For example, with a coastline of more than 3,000 km and located in the monsoonal climate zone, Vietnam has considerable potential for power generation from wind resources.
With the average speed at 65 meters varying from 7.6 meter per second to 4.4 meter per second in different locations, it's being estimated that the total technical potential for wind power development in Vietnam is believed to be at 24 GWs.
To exploit this potential, recently Vietnamese PhuCuong Wind Farm has formalised a joint venture with GE Renewable Energy with a plan to make $2 billion investment to generate 800 MWs power from wind.
Similarly, Bangladesh's almost 600 km coastline also has a potential of wind power generation. Moreover, as technology is supporting the offshore wind farms to be economically viable alternative to onshore plants, many of the uninhabitable islands, which often get submerged during high tide, could also be target areas of establishing large wind farms, generating large volume of energy meeting the whole demand of the country.
With the growing population and rapid urbanisation, the global energy demand is likely to grow. Particularly, in developing countries, such growth will be exponential in nature. On the other hand, emission from electrical power generation from conventional sources is a serious concern.
Already, air pollution in certain South Asian cities like Delhi or Dhaka has reached an alarming level. Certainly, fossil fuel based power generation, particularly from coal-fired power plants, is not a scalable solution to meet the growing demand.
With the possibility of offshore wind emerging as an economically viable alternative, there is a hope that the increasing energy demand can be met while keeping the damage to the environment at a tolerable level.
In addition to addressing immediate demand, energy policies should take into consideration advances in wind power to lay the path for renewables creating longer-term collective gain.
M Rokonuzzaman Ph.D is academic, researcher and activist on technology, innovation and policy.
zaman. [email protected]
