2013 to be record year for offshore wind energy

Offshore wind power installations are on track to hit a seventh consecutive annual record in 2013.

Developers added 1,080 megawatts of generating capacity in the first half of the year, expanding the world total by 20 percent in just six months.

Fifteen countries host some 6,500 megawatts of offshore wind energy capacity.

Before the year is out, the world total should exceed 7,100 megawatts.

Although still small compared with the roughly 300,000 megawatts of land-based wind power, offshore capacity is growing at close to 40 percent a year.

In 1991, Denmark installed the world