At its Plenary session this week in Strasbourg, the European Parliament voted to support an acceleration of the development of offshore wind energy in Europe, including investing €530 billion in offshore grid infrastructure over the coming three decades.
The European Parliament’s resolution on a European strategy for offshore renewable energy expects between 340 and 450 GW of offshore renewables to be constructed in European waters before 2050. It “stresses the urgency of improving and expanding existing infrastructure” and “calls on the European Commission and the Member States to ensure there is adequate infrastructure in the EU to ensure a cost-effective deployment of offshore renewable energy”.
“I congratulate Rapporteur, Morten Petersen, and his colleagues in the European Parliament for instilling a strong sense of urgency and clear direction towards large scale exploitation of Europe’s massive offshore energy resources,” said SuperNode CEO John Fitzgerald.
The Parliament resolution passed by 518 votes to 88. It points out that “the EU will not be able to live up to its climate commitments if no further actions are taken to accelerate the deployment of offshore renewable energy” and “encourages the Member States to speed up the necessary grid infrastructure to facilitate the green transition, for which electrification is crucial”.
Moreover, it “stresses that Member State collaboration is vital,” but “the current legal framework should be improved in order to facilitate such collaboration” and the UK should be included. The European Parliament “strongly believes that failure to enhance collaboration between Member States and inter-connected non-EU countries will inhibit the roll-out of offshore energy,” the resolution warns.
“Adding up the EU, UK and Norwegian offshore wind targets takes us well beyond 500 GW of offshore wind in Europe. That’s equivalent to building a 300 MW wind farm every week between now and 2050. We need to start planning a pan-European offshore power grid to support offshore renewables now and the European Parliament is right to point out that the current governance structure and legal framework for Member State collaboration is not fit for purpose,” said Fitzgerald, who also expressed SuperNode’s strong support for the European Parliament’s recommendations on anticipatory investments and innovation.
The resolution “stresses that the development of sustainable and efficient hybrid and radial offshore wind assets for generation, interconnection and transmission requires forward-looking public and private planning and investment” and “believes strongly that regulatory frameworks should facilitate anticipatory investments”.
On innovation, the resolution reiterates the European Parliament’s call on the Commission “to tailor Horizon Europe to the development, scaling-up and commercialisation of breakthrough technologies and innovations in the Union so as to bridge the gap between innovation and market deployment, by providing risk financing for early-stage technology and demonstration projects”.
The report, voted on by the European Parliament this week is a response to a European Commission communication on an EU Strategy to harness the potential of offshore renewable energy, published in 2020.
See the Commission communication here
See the adopted European Parliament resolution here
Contact:
Mr Christian Kjaer, Chief Public Affairs Officer
Tel: +45 9360 2023
Christian.Kjaer@SuperNode.energy