The Anonymous Widower

What Is The Potential Capacity Of Wind Farms In The Atlantic To The West Of Ireland?

In Is This Healey’s Magic Money Tree?, I published this map of the EEZ of the UK and those of neighbouring coastal states.

 

Note.

  1. The European part of the UK EEZ is shown in bright blue.
  2. Google AI gives its size as 766,309 square kilometres.
  3. The Irish EEZ is labelled IE, and surrounds the island of Ireland.
  4. Google AI gives its size as 880,000 square kilometres.
  5. Much of the European part of the UK and Irish EEZs stretch a full 200 nautical miles from the coast.
  6. The German EEZ is indicated by DE.
  7. Google AI gives its size as 32,982 square kilometres.
  8. The European part of the UK EEZ is 23 times the size of the whole of the German EEZ, which includes a small part in the Baltic Sea
  9. The Irish EEZ is 27 times the size of the whole of the German EEZ.

Just like the UK, the Irish seemed to have been very lucky, when the EEZs were drawn.

What Is Google AI’s Estimate Of The Potential Capacity In The Atlantic To The West Of Ireland?

I asked Google AI the question in the title of this post and received this answer.

The potential capacity of floating offshore wind (FLOW) farms in the Atlantic Ocean to the west of Ireland ranges from at least 30 gigawatts (GW) under official government long-term goals to roughly 197 GW to 600 GW in technical and scientific assessments.

Key Capacity Estimates for the Atlantic / West Coast:

Official Long-Term Policy Target: The Irish government’s Programme for Government aims to tap into at least 30 GW of offshore floating wind power off the Atlantic coast by 2050.

Scientific & Technical Potential (Regional): Studies examining floating offshore wind deployment in designated areas of Irish waters (spanning over 58,000 km²) estimate a total capacity of 197 GW, with about 80% concentrated in water depths of 60 to 200 meters.

Broader Atlantic / Exclusive Economic Zone Ceiling: Theoretical and high-ambition studies suggest the vast Atlantic marine area possesses an upper technical bound reaching up to 600 GW (with long-term high-ambition scenarios exploring around 150 GW by 2075).

Why the West Coast Has High Potential

Stronger Winds: Wind speeds of 9 to 11 meters per second at typical hub heights yield high capacity factors of 50% to 60%, significantly outperforming typical North Sea sites (35% to 45%).

Floating Technology (FLOW): Because waters off the Atlantic west coast are deep, development relies on floating wind platforms rather than fixed-bottom turbines.

Detailed analysis and context on these projections can be explored via the The Irish Atlantic Energy Vision Report and technical evaluations hosted by IEEE Xplore.

These really are capacities with extreme potentials.

 

 

 

 

 

November 3, 2026 - Posted by | Artificial Intelligence, Energy | , , , , , ,

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