Asian nations counting on offshore wind farms to meet clean energy goals are facing an increasing shortage of ships for installing the massive turbines in the sea.
As countries embark on a rapid buildout of wind power in the next decade, builders cannot churn out the support vessels fast enough to keep up, shipping experts have said.
The situation is only going to get worse as blades get longer and require bigger ships to handle them.
Photo: Reuters
“Specialized vessels are going to be in demand for projects in Taiwan and South Korea,” said Sean Lee, chief executive officer of shipyard Marco Polo Marine Ltd. “There will be more and more projects coming up, and a big wave of them in Japan from 2028.”
The complicated job of planting a wind turbine in the seabed requires several types of ships specially designed for the work: Turbine installers feature massive cranes capable of hoisting objects weighing as much as 700 tonnes. Commissioning service operation vessels, or CSOVs, provide adjustable gangways that allow technicians to reach the turbine blades.
Excluding China, there are only about 10 turbine installing ships and a few dozen CSOVs operating worldwide, according to shipbroker Clarksons.
By 2030, demand for turbine installers would outpace supply by about 15 vessels, while the gap for CSOVs would widen to more than 145 CSOVs from 30, it estimates.
China has 84 ships capable of installing wind turbines, according to trade group Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).
However, the majority of those can only handle small turbines, with many having been converted from oil and gas ships. These are unlikely to meet specifications in Europe or elsewhere in Asia.
The shortage of ships is significant for Asia as the GWEC predicts the continent will top Europe as the region with the most new offshore wind installations through 2026.
A lack of vessels could set back countries’ efforts to diversify away from fossil fuels.
“The potential crunch is likely to occur in the mid-to-late 2020s as more countries begin constructing their wind farms to meet 2030 national targets,” said Bahzad Ayoub, a senior analyst at consultant Westwood Global Energy Group.
Many of the ships have been deployed to Europe, Lee said.
To fill the gap in Asia, tugs and support vessels that were serving oil rigs in Southeast Asia have been diverted to wind farms, he said.
However, using oil and gas ships cannot be a long-term solution and the current fleet of installation vessels might soon become obsolete as turbine sizes grow to be almost as long as the Eiffel Tower.
As technology advances, wind farms could see these lengths increase to 275m by 2030, the GWEC has said.
Larger turbines mean the required lifting heights and crane capacities of vessels installing the blades must increase, Ayoub said.
Shipping companies are racing to fill the gap. Marco Polo is building a CSOV by next year to be chartered by Vestas Wind Systems A/S in Taiwan. Cadeler A/S has ordered four turbine installation vessels for next year to 2026 from Cosco Heavy Industries, while Maersk Supply Service has ordered one from Sembcorp Marine Ltd for delivery to the US in 2025.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS