Too windy?

Meanwhile, offshore wind markets are facing a downslide with major players pulling out of projects. Like Masdar of Abu Dhabi, which may pull out of London Array, which was in the news as UK’s answer to beat Denmark with largest number of offshore plants.

The 341-turbine London Array, along with the smaller 100-turbine Thanet wind farm which was also approved, will supply 1.3 gigawatts of electricity -- enough to power one million homes. Each turbine could be as tall as 850 feet and power 8000 homes.

The Masdar move comes after BP and Shell have pulled out of wind projects in the UK, China, India and Turkey to go for the more favourable climate in the US. In the UK there has been opposition to wind projects from environment groups as well as the defence ministry over radar interference.

Meanwhile, the US has the largest potential wind market in the world, with the industry on track to install a total of 7,500 megawatts this year, up from 5,249 in 2007.

The costs of offshore wind plants are almost double as onshore plants. The technical needs too are more complex as these stand in deep ocean waters and need deepsea cables to transmit the energy.

The main attraction of going offshore is the enormous wind resource available. Average wind speeds can be 20 percent higher than on land, and the resulting energy yield from wind farms as much as 70 percent higher.

Offshore wind-power capacity, though currently small, is growing faster than onshore capacity. The 20 countries that are members of IEA Wind, a branch of the International Energy Agency, increased offshore wind capacity by 26 percent in 2007 from 2006, compared with a 21-percent increase for onshore capacity.

In India, the TN government has evinced interest in offshore wind plants. Not much has been done. Is it unfavourable investment regulations? Or formidable costs? Is it worth taking up?