European countries pledge €1 TRILLION for offshore wind

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Nine European countries have pledged to spend €1 trillion on offshore wind development over the next 10 years.

The ‘Investment Pact for the North Seas’ has set out plans to build 15GW every year between 2031 and 2040, promising ‘cost reductions, 91,000 additional jobs and €1tn of economic activity’.

North Sea Summit

“With the Investment Pact, Europe is charging the massive offshore buildout it needs to deliver on its energy security and competitiveness objectives,” it says.

Meeting in Hamburg on Monday, the heads of state and energy ministers of Belgium, Denmark, France, the UK, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway confirmed to build 300GW of offshore wind in the North Seas by 2050.

More than 100 offshore wind companies across the value chain also signed an Industry Declaration alongside the pact and an ‘Energy Minister Declaration’, which said by 2040, €60 billion of fossil fuel imports could be saved, which equalled 33% of today’s amount.

“Offshore wind has been a European success story with 37GW installed across 13 countries,” a statement says. “That’s more than 6,000 turbines providing home-grown, clean and competitive electricity at scale. But deployment has been dragged by sub-optimal auction design, increased costs of capital and lack of visibility for the supply chain due to an uncertain project pipeline.

“Today’s Investment Pact addresses the challenges head-on.”

Under the pact governments will provide planning and investment security and de-risk projects. It will entail using the Contracts for Difference model and pledges to remove obstacles to Power Purchase Agreements.

The industry, the pact says, will commit to drive down the cost of offshore wind by 30% by 2040 compared with 2025, made possible by scale effects, lower costs of capital and further industrialisation, it says.

Another crucial element will be getting Transmission System Operators (TSOs) on board to ‘identify cost-effective cooperation projects in the North Seas’. By 2027 the aim is to identify 20GW of ‘economically cross-border projects’ including hybrid projects, which combine electricity production and interconnection.

“Today Europe doubles down on offshore wind,” said WindEurope Interim CEO Malgosia Bartosik. “Government cooperation on offshore wind buildout can help crowd in €1trillion of investments in the next decade. This is the best possible response to those who doubt Europe. And our drive to deliver energy that is home-grown, secure and affordable.”