'Bigger – but they're not doing the R&D': Insurer says wind's 'race to scale' a recipe for failure - Recharge
'Bigger - but they're not doing the R&D': Insurer says wind's 'race to scale' a recipe for failure | Recharge
Ever-larger turbines rushed into the sector to feed a burgeoning offshore wind market are failing more frequently and with greater financial impact than their smaller counterparts, an analysis by renewable energy insurer GCube found.
Turbine OEMs are then passing costs onto an insurance sector buoyed by an influx of inexperienced providers looking for a quick profit and to satisfy corporate environmental mandates, asserted GCube’s report, Vertical Limit: when is bigger not better in offshore wind’s race to scale?
Referencing losses at all three global offshore wind turbine suppliers – GE, Siemens Gamesa, and Vestas – Fraser McLachlan, GCube’s CEO, told Recharge: “They’re now starting to push back on a lot of their warranties, and the impact of that pushing back on their warranties is being forced onto the insurance market.”
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”