The Communication on Offshore Wind Energy identifies the challenges that need to be tackled to exploit Europe's potential for offshore wind energy and how EU action can help in meeting these challenges. Key themes include the need for more cross-border cooperation to share experiences and coordinate better in fields such as electricity grid and maritime spatial planning, regulatory practices regarding interconnector investments, and environmental impact assessments of wind farms.

Some EU Member States have already integrated up to 20% of wind energy in their electricity systems, but generally the significant potential for using wind energy for electricity generation remains unused. Wind power is, however, rapidly increasing, and more than 40% of all new electricity generation capacity added to the European grid in 2007 was wind. It is expected that wind energy will represent more than one third of all electricity production from renewable energy sources by 2020.

Read the full story in the December issue of Maritime Journal.