With energy scares mounting in the UK and Mainland Europe, various initiatives to counter a drop in using Russian liquified natural gas (LNG) are being desperately explored. Offshore wind turbine farms were always experimental in nature before the Russia-Ukraine conflict but have now become the chief cornerstone of the UK's energy salvation plan.
The United Kingdom is known as the best location for wind energy farms in Europe, and arguably in the world. The strength of the oceanic wind currents from the Norwegian and North Atlantic drift channels allows for a steady supply of natural wind power to convert into usable energy.
By 2022, the UK had over 11 thousand wind turbines installed with a total capacity of 25 gigawatts (GW). The split is currently 14GW onshore and 11GW offshore. As the world's largest offshore wind market, Britian generated a record amount of electricity this October gone.
With liquified natural gas in "short" supply, the wind farm strategy is proving to work as a reliable interim back up plan, and soon may furthermore prove to become the main plan.
UK Wind farm rated capacity by region
(Installed 2015 and 2020, projected by 2025)
Offshore wind is a key element to the UK's plan to reach net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the 21st century, which seems more than likely now that the current electrical output is a record breaking 9.9GW more than last year.
Wind power has numerous economic benefits, such as creating good-paying jobs. There are over 120,000 people employed in the U.S. wind industry, and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, wind turbine service technicians are the second fastest growing job of the decade within the U.S.
Wind power is also cost-effective, as it has cheaper price tariffs and quotas than that of nuclear, hydro and coal power. Moreover, the agility of the wind turbine's infrastructure can be placed in rural and remote areas with minimum maintenance costs.
Wind turbines do make a lot of noise however, and ruin natural aesthetics. Perhaps installing them in the most boring and least aesthetically pleasing of sites would be part of the logistics strategy.
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