The Green Investment Group (GIG) is partnering with GE to build and operate the Swedish Markbygden ETT offshore wind farm, which has been purchased from Svevind as a live project for development. The partnering firms have raised around 800 million euros of finance and have already begun work on the facility's construction.

The project is expected to be a rapid build, with commissioning scheduled for the latter half of next year and full operation planned for the winter of 2019. The turbines will each have 179 MW of capacity and 137-metre rotor blades. They will be supplied by GE Renewable Energy, along with an ice mitigation hardware system created by LM Wind Power.

GE will also be responsible for a twenty-year programme of operational support and servicing, as well as the provision of high-voltage switchgear for the wind development's two collection substations.

The partners have invested over 300 million euros themselves in the project. Around 500 million euros have been secured from the EIB, Nord HB, Export Credit Guarantees (a German scheme), IPEX Bank and other private organisations.

GIG and GE have also entered into a 19-year PPA with one of Norsk Hydro's subsidiary businesses to sell green energy at a fixed volume.

New figures have shown that the world's offshore wind capacity is set to reach 30GW by 2020, with almost 4GW of fresh capacity expected to be added annually between 2017 and 2020. Nearly 18GW of offshore wind energy is expected to be online by this December, according to reNEW Global.

Britain and Germany still lead the way on the global installation front, and China and Denmark are following close behind. After 2020, emerging markets, including Taiwan, will become critical as the offshore wind energy industry seeks to learn from Northern Europe's experiences.