For many years, offshore wind was theexpensive cousin of onshore wind with generation costs inthe range of $150 to $200 per megawatt hour (MWh). Thischanged dramatically between 2016 and 2017 when a series ofcompetitive tenders in Europe witnessed strike prices fallbelow $100/MWh, culminating in projects that bid intomerchant markets with no subsidy at all. Prices havecontinued to drop thanks to technological improvements,economies of scale, maturation of supply chains, betterprocurement strategies, and the efforts of large andsophisticated project developers, including several from theutility and oil and gas sectors. However, to date theoffshore wind industry has remained largely confined toEurope and China. As prices continue to drop, offshore windis increasingly gaining traction in emerging markets.Projections suggest that offshore wind will add between 7 to11 gigawatts (GW) per year from 2019 to 2024, reachingbetween 15 to 21 GW/year from 2025 to 2030. While much ofthe growth is expected in Europe, China, and newOrganization for Economic Co-operation and Development(OECD) markets including Japan, South Korea, and the UnitedStates, there is ample potential for developing countries toride on this momentum and ramp up their local offshoremarkets. This report presents eight case studies on thetechnical potential for offshore wind in Brazil, India,Morocco, the Philippines, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey,and Vietnam (here, technical potential is calculated on thebasis of wind speed and water depth). Considering offshoreareas within 200 kilometers (km) of the coast, 3 these eightcountries have a total technical potential of approximately3.1 terawatts, including 1,016 GW of fixed capacity and2,066 GW of floating capacity. UPDATE (May 2020): Since publication of this report the World Bank has published 56 country and regional maps, including updated versions of the maps available in this report. The maps can be accessed via the ESMAP website: https://esmap.org/node/197070.
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