Coronavirus to Dampen New Wind Installations

The amount of new wind capacity installed in the UK could slump by as much as 60% in 2020, as lockdown restrictions halt manufacturing and installations.

Installations were already projected to tumble this year, as the sector feels the lingering effects of the now-lifted moratorium on onshore wind, but the coronavirus outbreak is now expected to dampen them still further.

Analytics firm GlobalData has revised its forecasts for new wind installations in the UK this year downward by 20%, from 1.22GW to just 980GW. That would put annual installations at around a third of the 2.7GW installed in 2019.

The lockdown forced manufacturers of wind turbines like Siemens Gamesa to suspend operations. Some firms have already resumed manufacturing, after giving workers protective gear. But time lost will impact the number of turbines coming off assembly lines, creating a bottleneck that could limit installations for months.

The government has also revised the timetable for awarding rights to offshore sites with a capacity of 7GW, giving firms more time to submit tenders but further delaying installations.

The UK won’t be alone in seeing wind installations tumble. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has cautioned that its previous estimate of new global wind capacity exceeding 75GW this year may now be unattainable. 60.4GW of new capacity was installed around the world in 2019, after increasing by a fifth.

Work restrictions could also limit the performance of existing wind farms, by increasing the timeline on maintenance and repairs.

Somik Das, senior power analyst at GlobalData, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic could make it harder for wind farms to stay operational. 

“The output of existing wind farms could significantly decrease due to the supply chain, travel bans and deferred maintenance. In addition, a shortage of engineering staff due to the lockdown could delay critical operational and maintenance work at project sites.

“Under normal circumstances, fixing a broken rotor or gearbox typically takes no longer than a month but now it could see up to six months of downtime on a particular turbine, which is quite significant for the wind industry as a whole.”

Trade body WindEurope has already raised the alarm that travel bans could restrict the movement of essential operational and maintenance workers needed to keep wind farms up and running.

Joshua Gartland, the body’s advisor on trade and competitiveness, said: “We’re a little concerned that, for example, German engineers going to work on U.K. offshore wind farms could be held up at the border. This could then have a knock-on impact for energy production."

If wind farms can stay online, however, they'll potentially contribute a higher percentage of the UK's power than ever before. As the UK's energy demand as decreased in lockdown by 13%, the grid has prioritised the cheaper energy produced by renewables than that generated by fossil fuels.

Wind power isn’t the only renewable energy source to feel the effects of coronavirus lockdown. Bloomberg NEF has forecast that demand for solar capacity will fall by as much as 16%, after the Chinese factories which produce most of the world’s PV panels shuttered. 2020 could thus be the first year in more than 30 years that new solar installations fall compared to the previous year.