I speculated last week that rather than helping the US to revive old industries such as coal, President Donald Trumps decision to pull out of the Paris climate change agreement could see the US left behind in the transition to renewable energy. However, after attending Offshore Wind Energy 2017 in London, Im surer than ever that although there is a risk of this happening in America, the future of offshore wind energy is bright.

Fortunately for the US, a number of states are pressing ahead with plans for offshore wind and other forms of renewables, but for anyone attending the British event, at which there were more than 400 exhibitors and around 20 different conference sessions not to mention numerous excellent side events hosted by industry leaders such as Dong Energy there was a palpable sense of excitement. It was hard to keep up!

Now is our time, said Jonathan Cole, offshore managing director for ScottishPower Renewables and industry co-chair of the Offshore Wind Programme Board. The future of offshore wind is incredibly bright, he said, speaking in a conference session on the outlook for the offshore wind energy industry.

As he noted recently, the industry is already delivering on its promises. By 2020 the offshore wind sector will have delivered 10 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity and more than 30 billion (US$38 billion) of private sector capital will have been deployed, supporting thousands of high quality jobs and creating economic activity and opportunity in industrial towns and coastal communities around the country.

And the good news looks set to continue, because whichever way you look at the UK energy sector, offshore wind has a big role to play. The UK needs to rebuild around 50 per cent of its electricity generating infrastructure by the middle of the next decade and invest 100 billion in doing so. Most commentators agree that we need a mix of low carbon generation types nuclear, gas and renewables. But nuclear plants will struggle to be ready in time for 2025 at the quantities needed. Gas plants should be ready in time, but being over-reliant on gas would expose the UK market to volatile wholesale markets.

As Mr Cole noted, of all the technologies, offshore wind is the only one that is clean, green, deployable quickly at the required scale and capable of reliably producing massive quantities of electricity to keep our economy energised. At the same time, offshore wind offers huge potential for job creation in large-scale manufacturing and heavy engineering. In addition, offshore wind looks likely to become one of the cheapest sources of low carbon electricity in the future.

Recent auctions in continental Europe have resulted in prices for offshore wind that have surprised many by how low they are, in some cases lower than many predict the wholesale electricity price will be. But we shouldnt be surprised by these positive developments, because offshore wind is a sector that has grown and confounded expectations from the outset. It has risen to every technical and political challenge to grow the local supply chain, revolutionise the technology and deploy projects in ever harsher conditions, while at the same time achieving levels of cost reductions more typically seen in consumer electronics.

As I also noted last week, its not just in the UK and Europe that offshore wind looks set to play a major role. Important export markets are opening up in the near- to medium-term, in countries such as Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and China.

Nick Gardiner, managing director, offshore wind at the Green Investment Bank, said the industry was ready for globalisation and described extraordinary interest in floating offshore wind. Sbastien Brunel, commercial operations leader for offshore wind at GE Renewables, said GE has seen offshore wind move from a niche industry into the mainstream and had become a market with global potential.

Returning to the UK for a moment, the sector is also highly compatible with the governments plans for rebalancing the economy and promoting economic diversity through the Industrial Strategy. Major contracts are being delivered in towns and cities across the UK. Hull, Hartlepool, Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth, Grimsby, Teesside, Tyneside, Fife, Machrihanish and Belfast to name but a few. Offshore wind can continue to help to encourage economic regeneration where it is needed most, which is surely a message that advocates of offshore wind in the US ought to be hammering home to the Trump administration.

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'Now is our time' as offshore wind goes global - Offshore Wind Journal