World-wide offshore wind potential and European projects

Wind energy was the fasted growing energy technology in the 1990s. The growth of wind energy, however, is not evenly distributed around the world. By September 2000, around 72% of the world-wide wind energy capacity was installed in Europe, a further 16% in North America and 10% in Asia and the Pacific. In the near future, the European wind energy boom is expected to continue offshore rather than onshore as the space onshore is limited due to the high population density in Central Europe.