As part of the first day of the informal meeting of European energy ministers, on Thursday 4 September, the European Commissioner for Energy, Dan Jørgensen, presented the first two initiatives for “tripartite contracts with European industry for affordable energy” on which the Commission has begun work. These contracts concern offshore wind farms and grid and storage capacity.
“Based on these ambitions, we could have 88 gigawatts of offshore renewable energy by the end of the decade and up to 360 gigawatts by the middle of the century. This is equivalent to the combined current production capacity of Germany, Poland and Greece”, said the Commissioner.
This launch is part of the European Commission’s action plan for affordable energy prices, presented last February (see EUROPE 13588/3) to create an environment conducive to investment in affordable energy production.
Tripartite contracts aim to bring together clean energy developers, energy-intensive industry and the public sector, including financial institutions such as the European Investment Bank.
The initiative is inspired by what Denmark put in place in 2024 with the agricultural sector, introducing a “green tripartite agreement” with the government and environmental groups.
The Commissioner announced the start of work at the Avedøre cogeneration plant, owned by the Danish energy sector multinational Ørsted, in the presence of industry representatives such as Eurelectric, WindEurope, BusinessEurope and the European Association for Storage of Energy.
He also indicated that the Commission would not stop at storage and wind power, and would consider similar tripartite contracts in other sectors, such as biomethane, buildings, energy efficiency, nuclear power and the energy integration of data centres.
Offshore hybrid interconnection project. Earlier in the day, Commissioner Jørgensen took part in the signing of an EU-backed €645.2 million grant agreement for the Bornholm Energy Island (BEI) offshore hybrid project, which has been awarded project of common interest (PCI) status. This is the world’s first hybrid direct current interconnector. The project will bring 3 GW of renewable offshore electricity from the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea to the onshore grid, for distribution in Denmark and Germany. (Original version in French by Pauline Denys)