The European Commission’s DG Energy published a study at the end of August on the development of offshore renewable energy systems in the Irish Sea and the North Sea. The study recommends a high level of planning and coordination among the countries concerned to derive full benefit from the potential highlighted.
The study considers several possible plans for building wind farms to generate renewable energy, energy storage facilities, and an electricity grid that would extend over the territorial waters of Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
It examines the impact of different grid configurations – with different levels of connection between the countries' energy networks – on the area and its marine environment, and considers how to minimise ecological harm as much as possible.
It recommends that a high level of planning and coordination be deployed in the construction of an offshore renewable energy system. It also suggests that data concerned by the project should be standardised and systematically stored.
In June 2016, the ministers of the North Sea countries signed a political declaration and adopted an action plan to develop offshore wind projects in the North Sea, speed up construction of missing electricity links, harmonise the regulatory framework and further integrate energy markets (see EUROPE 11566).
This initiative resulted in the setting up of a North Seas Energy Forum, headed up by the Commission and bringing together representatives of the public and private sectors of ten countries in the north seas region (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Sweden, plus Norway), to bring forward plans for a wind power hub.
At the first meeting on 23 March, the Dutch, Danish and German electricity transmission system operators signed an agreement to develop the North Sea Wind Power Hub, with the construction of an artificial island in the North Sea to link the wind farms and transmit the energy generated to the whole of the North Sea region (see EUROPE 11751).
The study is to be found at: https://goo.gl/36fmX. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)