Offshore wind energy looking good in Germany

Offshore wind energy is becoming increasingly popular around the globe, and one of the global offshore wind energy leaders could soon become Germany, especially since in 2010 Norbert Röttgen, German Federal Environment Minister, announced that offshore wind power companies can rely on debt guarantees from the government to secure the financing of "10 mega projects" wind turbines in the North and Baltic seas up until the end of 2011.

This may seem as a surprise because very few energy experts expected such a strong support for offshore wind energy in Germany.

According to this new plan for offshore wind power expansion, 10,000 MW of offshore wind farm capacity should be built within the next 10 years, and 25,000 MW in the next 20 years, meaning that offshore wind power should play key energy role in ensuring clean energy future for Germany.

This was confirmed by Röttgen's words when he said how he believes that Germany can "reach nearly 100% renewable energy by 2050, and wind power will provide about 50% of this".

Such positive offshore wind energy policy will no doubt attract many investors in Germany, and Germany looks set to become one of the leaders in global clean energy race.

As said above, offshore wind energy is becoming increasingly popular around the globe, and Europe currently leads the way by constantly adding new offshore wind projects. According to the latest reports the year 2010 was exceptional for offshore wind energy in Europe as European offshore wind farm installations have exceeded all expectations since more MW have been installed in the first half of 2010 than in the same period in 2009.

The same cannot be said for United States, and latest reports indicate that US wind energy sector is somewhat stagnating, with latest reports showing that only 1.24 GW of wind energy capacity was added in the first half of this year, less than half of the capacity installed in the same period in both 2008 and 2009.

Many energy experts agree that this slowdown in adding new wind energy capacity is mostly connected with the lack of adequate renewable energy policy that would show more support for new renewable energy projects in United States.

As AWEA chief executive Denise Bode said "strong federal policy supporting the US wind energy industry has never been more important, and Congress has to act now - before time runs out this session".

However Congress is currently much more interested in finding the solution to get the nation out of the potential bankruptcy after the record economic debt which has piled over the years.