Operation and maintenance for wind power: “billion-dollar” market

The expansion of the operation and maintenance markets (O&M) for wind power results from the rapid growth of global wind power. Many new chances for the early stage of the field, in particular, include offshore wind power.

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Highlighting Record Growth of Wind Power

Along with solar energy, wind power is a vital renewable energy source worldwide. The total wind power capacity in 2020 was nearly 743 GW, up 93 GW compared to 2019. With an increase of 53% compared with the same period last year, 2020 recorded the record growth rate, the highest in the global wind power industry history.

China, the United States, Germany, India, Spain, England, France, and Brazil, etc., are the top countries of wind power installed capacity. China and the United States, in particular, are the two markets with the most developed steps. In these two markets, 75 percent of new wind power plants were constructed in 2020. In terms of geography, in addition to the European market, the Asia Pacific area is projected to play an increasingly important role in promoting wind power growth.

In the transition clean energy trend, wind power is still the top choice. In particular, offshore wind power has a great potential development. Although it is still in the pre-stage, only 35.3 GW, offshore wind power is also growing very fast. The total new installation capacity of 2020 is over 6 GW – which helps offshore wind power increase by 106% by five years. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the world’s offshore wind power market in 2050 can reach 1,000 billion USD.

Offshore wind power is growing strongly

The fast growth of installed capacity drives the development of the O&M market in both onshore and offshore wind power. There are numerous chances to be opened to offshore wind power.

O&M offshore wind power expects to grow 16% per year on average

According to the unit’s reports specializing in researching and analyzing the energy industry – Wood Mackenzie, the offshore Wind O&M is expected to reach 12 billion USD by 2029; the average annual growth rate is 16%. In particular, China is expected to overcome England, becoming the world’s largest offshore O&M wind power market with a scale of 2 billion USD. According to the region, Europe is still the largest O&M market, expected to reach USD 6.6 billion in 2029. In addition, the Asia-Pacific region and the US offshore wind power market will also bring many new opportunities. These opportunities in this “billion-dollar” market will open for both current and new industrial units.

Wind turbines are increasing in the capacity as well as advancing in designing and construction, according to Wood Mackenzie’s study. As a result, it requires more regular maintenance and operation. The increase in the complexity of the turbine and the scale of the project is also a premise for developing O&M activities. Wood Mackenzie experts said that when manufacturers spend more resources for O&M services for newer turbine samples with greater capacity, the maintenance of turbines that have been in operation for a long period creates chances for independent service providers and small engineering teams.

The global wind power O&M market is attended by many large corporations, such as STEAG (Germany)

The cost of O&M wind power will be reduced thanks to the application of digital technology. Earlier, the deployment of flexible operating service ships, unmanned aircraft applications, cameras, digital technologies that helped remote management helped operating costs (OPEX)/MW reduce 44 % over the past eight years. Wood Mackenzie predicts that this cost in the field of offshore wind power will decrease an average by 20% in the period 2020-2029, because of the support of AI, Big Data technologies.

Vũ Phong Energy Group