EGEB: World’s largest offshore floating wind farm is
now complete
In today’s Electrek Green Energy Brief (EGEB):
The world’s largest floating offshore wind farm, the Kincardine
Offshore Wind, is now installed.
The IMF is undermining global climate goals by advising countries to
invest in fossil fuels.
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Offshore floating wind farm completed
The installation of the 50 megawatt (MW) Kincardine Offshore Wind
farm, the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm 9 miles (15 km)
off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland, is now complete.
The wind farm consists of a 2 MW Vestas turbine and five 9.5 MW Vestas
turbines.
It’s expected to generate up to 218 GWh of clean electricity each
year, enough to power 55,000 households.
The Madrid-headquartered Cobra Wind was responsible for the
commissioning, engineering, design, supply, and construction of the
wind farm. The Navantia-Windar consortium in Spain manufactured the
floating wind foundations. They were then transported to Rotterdam in
the Netherlands, where the wind turbines were mounted on the
foundations.
Read more: Biden administration opens up the US Pacific coast to
offshore wind
Bad advice from the IMF
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) describes itself as:
[A]n organization of 190 countries, working to foster global
monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate
international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic
growth, and reduce poverty around the world.
Yet the IMF has undermined global climate action by promoting
fossil-fuel expansion through its policy advice, locking developing
countries into a reliance on coal and gas that is harming their
economies and the planet, according to new research by ActionAid USA
and the UK-based NGO Bretton Woods Project.
The report, IMF Surveillance and Climate Change Transition Risks, is
based on analysis of all 595 Article IV reports conducted in the IMF’s
190 member countries between the signing of the Paris Agreement in
December 2015 and March 2021. Article IV reports contain policy advice
to countries that shapes their economies for years to come. The report
found:
In more than half of all member countries (105), the IMF’s policy
advice – since world leaders agreed to limit global warming to 1.5C
through national action to reduce emissions – has supported the
expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure. This leaves countries at risk
of being left with “stranded assets,” such as coal plants that lose
their value due to competition from clean energy, while setting a
polluting pathway at odds with global climate goals and a just
transition to renewables.
In more than one-third of countries (69), the IMF has advocated for
the privatization of state-owned energy or electricity utilities to
reduce public spending. Privatization can bind governments to
long-term agreements with foreign investors and make it difficult for
them to end fossil-based energy.
One-third of all countries were advised to end energy subsidies – an
area that the IMF is increasingly positioning as a first step to
decarbonizing economies. But the research found that the advice
focuses mainly on consumer subsidies rather than ending benefits for
fossil fuel production. With few alternatives to fossil-based energy
and transport in most developing countries, this is unlikely to reduce
emissions at scale, while pushing costs onto the shoulders of ordinary
citizens – rather than tackling the generous subsidies given to fossil
fuel companies.
Niranjali Amerasinghe, ActionAid USA executive director and climate
finance expert, says:
The International Monetary Fund should ensure its policy advice makes
it easier, not harder, for countries to transition to renewable
energy.
Photo: Cobra Group
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