The nine countries participating in the North Sea Summit agreed on a target of 300 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2050 on Monday 24 April in Ostend, Belgium. Together with their national targets, they thus raise the target set last year at the first Summit in Esbjerg, Denmark, to 120 gigawatts.
“Today we have a capacity of 7 gigawatts per year. If we want to increase our ambition, we need to build 20 gigawatts of capacity annually”, explained Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo to the press. “This is why it is important to move from announcement to acceleration of projects”.
The host country will be the first to build an ‘energy island’, as part of Next Generation EU, with the ambition of becoming an energy hub in the North Sea by connecting its own wind farms and interconnectors before sending electricity to the mainland.
Massive development of offshore wind power
The stated aim of the nine participating countries is to make the North Sea the largest offshore wind farm in the world, with an unprecedented 300 gigawatts of generating capacity, ten times the current capacity.
European leaders have said repeatedly that the potential of the North Sea is great and that Europe has the coastline, the wind and the expertise to build this farm while ensuring the safety of the system.
This project is in line with the objective of the renewable energy directive (see EUROPE 13153/1). European co-legislators had reached an agreement on 30 March to double the share of renewable energy in the EU’s overall energy consumption to 42.5% by 2030, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a press conference.
She also stressed the importance of accelerated procedures for the development of renewable energies, now enshrined in the directive. “This directive is a great advantage to have simple and fast authorisation procedures that will be necessary to build the parks”.
A need for coordination between North Sea countries
“We need to step up a gear”, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told a handful of journalists. “We have to discuss together where we put cables and all the interconnectors have to be in place to be able to transport this energy”.
This should be achieved through accelerated permitting, new network interconnections and standardisation processes with regard to infrastructure construction, but also safety measures.
Sovereignty and competitiveness of European industry
French President Emmanuel Macron emphasised European sovereignty and autonomy in terms of critical materials and assembly as well as green hydrogen production: “We need a coherent approach, with an industry to produce green energy at home”.
As part of the summit, more than 120 European renewable energy industry players from across the value chain attended and signed a declaration which emphasises the importance of “clear investment signals and plug-in ready grids (...), which are essential to unlock the huge amount of investment needed”.
To be a leader in the production of green hydrogen
The EU leaders also discussed the potential of offshore wind power in the North Sea to develop the green hydrogen production sector: “We can make a difference in Europe, we have the potential to produce massively”. Finally, Ms von der Leyen encouraged countries to work on cross-border projects and assured, in parallel, that the Commission is working on the development of the hydrogen bank (see EUROPE 13143/4) in order to create “a fully-fledged hydrogen market”. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)