At 89,000 km, Europe's coastlines are over twice the length of the equator. The winds that rage around these extensive shores are some of the strongest and most constant in the world. They could supply Europe's power demand seven times over. With such a massive natural resource, and with onshore wind energy now a mainstream source of power and a mature European industry, it is no surprise that, in the last few years, offshore wind energy has been taking off in a big way.To crunch some numbers, by the end of 2010, there were over 1,100 grid-connected turbines in Europe's seas. They were supplying the equivalent of 2.9m average EU households (nearly twice the number of households in Ireland) with 11.5 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity. In just six months, by the end of June this year, this had already gone up to 1,247 grid connected offshore wind turbines. This means about one new offshore turbine is coming onto the grid every two days and, by the time this article is printed, more are likely to be up and running. At the moment nine countries have offshore wind farms, representing 3,294MW of capacity: the UK leads with 1,341MW, and Ireland is in seventh place with 25MW installed. The nine countries in order of offshore wind capacity installed (highest to lowest) are the UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, Finland and Norway.
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