Like the rest of Europe, the UK has a Kyoto-level ambitious renewable energy plan to reduce its CO2 emissions 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. As part of achieving this, the island nation plans to build an astonishing 32 Gigawatts of off-shore wind by 2020, enough to supply a quarter of its electricity.
However, a “lack of investment in the vessels used to build offshore wind farms could hinder Britain’s ambitions to shift to renewable energy”, E.ON UKs Robin Rigg told Reuters. He is the head of one of the leading companies in the consortium of companies meeting the UK’s 32 Gigawatt target.
It will take an armada of vessels to get the huge parts of modern turbines out into the North Sea to deploy them in off-shore wind farms. In today’s world, the supply chain is lacking. There are not enough ships that can carry turbines, and building these ships will take a huge investment. (more…)