The European Commission is “doubling down” on its efforts to support the offshore renewables sector.
The EU has published a “new vision for the accelerated deployment of offshore wind”, as part of the European Wind Power Action Plan launched today.
Building on the Offshore Renewable Energy Strategy from 2020, Member States recently agreed on ambitious new goals for offshore renewable energy generation by 2050, with intermediate goals for 2030 and 2040 for each of the EU’s five sea basins.
To achieve this goal the Commission is “doubling down” on its efforts to support the offshore renewables sector specifically, setting out additional actions.
These are focused on strengthening grid infrastructure and regional cooperation, accelerating permitting, ensuring integrated Maritime Spatial Planning, strengthening resilience of infrastructure, sustaining research and innovation, as well as developing supply chains and skills.
In 2022, the cumulative EU-27 offshore installed capacity amounted to 16.3GW.
This means that to bridge the gap between the 111GW committed by the Member States and the 2022 capacity, the EU must install almost 12GW/year on average – 10 times more than the new 1.2GW installed last year.