Next steps towards a North Seas offshore grid
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The work programme for the period 2025-2027 for the North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC) has been approved by the participant country energy ministers.
The work programme is aimed to build on achievements to date and the January 2023 non-binding agreement by members on the goal of 218GW of offshore renewable generation in the Northern Seas offshore grid corridor by 2050.
Intermediate steps set for 2030 and 2040 are up to 60.3GW and 158.3GW respectively, with these, along with other offshore developments in other seas in the region, expected to meet the EU’s offshore target of at least 300GW of offshore wind and 40GW of ocean energy by 2050.
The North Seas in this context encompass the North Sea, the Irish and Celtic Seas and English Channel, with the NSEC member countries including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, as well as the European Commission, while a cooperation framework is in place with the UK.
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Broadly the work programme is focussed on concrete actions to develop offshore renewables and the necessary offshore grids, including hybrid interconnectors, joint renewable projects, as well as hydrogen production and transmission and further shaping energy system integration.
Hybrid and joint projects interconnecting multiple assets to countries are set to be an integral part of a future meshed grid in the North Seas.
However, they face numerous barriers that must be addressed, particularly related to the regulatory framework and market arrangements, considering also the forward and balancing markets.
Other work items in this area include addressing risks regarding lack of transmission access related to hybrid projects and offshore bidding zones and developing a regional and coordinated approach to the build-out of offshore renewable energy in the North Seas.
Other areas for further work are maritime spatial planning, environmental assessment and management processes to fully utilise the energy potential of the North Seas.
A key work item is to develop a concrete action plan to address the most pressing issues for promoting a balanced co-existence of renewable energy and nature.
A further area for work is to refine long-term infrastructure planning considering both offshore and onshore needs, as well as energy sector integration including concretising optimal infrastructure planning such as hub-and-spoke concepts and power-to-x alongside other potential technologies like gas-to-wire.
Renewable hydrogen
With the potential of offshore renewable hydrogen to play an important role in the European energy system post-2030, in order to better understand the current main challenges, an assessment should be made on the outlook of offshore and near-coast onshore hydrogen development in the North Seas region.
The hydrogen demand centres should be mapped and along with countries’ hydrogen plans, fed into the infrastructure development discussions.
For the framework support and finance group, tasks include coordinating offshore tenders and addressing the barriers and solutions for power purchase agreements (PPAs) given their potential to play an increasingly important role in the future financing of offshore projects.
In the Northern Seas network development plan published in January 2024, ENTSO-E asserted that the large increase of offshore renewable generation and the decrease of thermal capacity would result in a weather-dependent energy mix to cover electricity demand, changing the utilisation of the system and necessitating more flexibility.
ENTSO-E estimated that an annual installation of 15GW of offshore wind is needed towards 2030, with the first hybrid projects also expected to come into operation by then and the first interlinked offshore clusters appearing around 2040.
