Between 2009-2020, 23 GW of new capacity will be required, from a mix of on and offshore wind farms. Wind is a desirable technology to use as it is zero carbon, it is ‘tried and tested’ and available to deploy now, it is also available at reasonable cost in comparison to other technologies.

The Committee has developed a path for how wind generation could be developed from now until 2020 by looking at the feasibility of new investment given site availability and planning, supply chain constraints.

 In 2009, 0.5 GW of new wind capacity was delivered, and the remaining 0.2 GW required to meet the 2009 indicator were delivered in the early months of 2010. In the years to 2020, the investment rate needs to increase to over 3 GW per year. This will be challenging and dependent on the following:

• The planning process needs to be aligned with the renewables target to allow projects to receive approval in a timely manner

• Further progress in agreeing investments to reduce bottlenecks in the power transmission network needs to be made in order to ensure that renewables can be added to the grid.
• The supply chain must continue to mobilise to accommodate a 3 fold expansion in onshore and offshore wind annual installation capability (the announcements in 2010 of a number of new turbine and blade manufacturing plants were a positive first step).
• The planning process needs to be aligned with the renewables target to allow projects to receive approval in a timely manner