Potential Of Deep Sea Offshore Wind Energy

As climate change worsens, nations across the world are enacting and attempting to meet aggressive carbon and clean energy goals in order to combat it. Only a large number of large-scale developments is able to achieve those objectives. Deep sea offshore wind energy has a high capacity factor, allowing it to provide both baseload and flexibility at the same time. The purpose of this work is to determine where the most suitable sites in Europe and Africa for this technology are situated. The potentials were calculated with an Analytic Hierarchy Process developed by A. Bahaj at the University of Southampton ([1]). which uses the Levelized Cost of Energy as a base. The results show that the majority of northern Europe is ideal for deep sea offshore wind energy. Just a few high potential areas exist in the seas of southern Europe: Bretagne, south of France, north of Spain, and between Greece and Turkey. Africa's potential comprises primarily of small desirable sites spread throughout various regions, including Morocco, Madagascar, Mauritania, Senegal, and Eritrea. The only wide high potential region extends through South African and Namibian waters.