Europe seeks to increase the capacity of wind turbines in the North Sea by 2050

2023-04-24 05:07:00

It is in Belgium, in Ostend, on the shores of the North Sea, that nine European countries are meeting this Monday to discuss the development of offshore wind power in particular. The main thing is not so much to state ambitious objectives as the speed of execution “, has already indicated the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, on the initiative of the” north sea summit “, calling for the strengthening of ” standardization technology to build faster and to better align tenders so as not to saturate supply chains.

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Ambition: 300 gigawatts (GW) by 2050

« Together the ambition is around 300 gigawatts (GW) by 2050 “, he specified. This is ten times more than the capacities currently installed. The forecast for 2030 is to at least quadruple the current fleet. In the shallow North Sea, wind turbines can be installed in large numbers “not too far from the coast,” in windy conditions to produce a lot of energy “green at a cost” particularly competitive “, argues for its part the Elysée. ” The orders of magnitude are gigantic (…) With us as with our neighbours, offshore wind power will probably be between 2030 and 2050 the main source of renewable energy production, far ahead of solar and onshore wind power. »

Indeed, while the United Kingdom has 14 GW of offshore wind power and Germany 8 GW, the capacities of Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands are between 2 and 3 GW, and those in France and Norway at around 0.5.

Cutting dependence on fossil fuels

After a first meeting of four countries in May 2022, this second “ north sea summit is part of Europe’s climate objectives as well as the desire to cut its dependence on imported fossil fuels following the war in Ukraine. The EU recently agreed to double the share of renewables in its energy consumption by 2030 to increase it to 42.5%, in particular by speeding up the authorization procedures for infrastructures. Brussels also offered regulatory relief for green industries in mid-March.

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“There is a lack of mobilization of funding”

The Ostend objectives are achievable” because Europe has technological and industrial leadership in offshore wind power “, more ” there is a lack of mobilization of funding to support the rise of production chains, warned Pierre Tardieu of the industrial federation WindEurope. Nacelles, blades, cables… “ We do not produce enough of certain crucial elements today. A lot of funding goes to innovation, but the challenge is to invest in existing production structures, the capacity of which must be doubled or tripled. The turbine manufacturers are currently operating at a loss, hard hit by the logistical disruptions following the Covid, one-time public support is needed “. The latter also points to the massive training and recruitment needs: offshore wind power will require 250,000 jobs in 2030, compared to 80,000 today. Another difficulty: Europe’s dependence on imports of critical components (rare earths, etc.), particularly from China.

European industry should manufacture within five years the equivalent of 20 GW of offshore wind turbines per year, once morest a capacity of around 7 currently… at the risk of saturated factories and bottlenecks on the components. The total cost promises to be colossal: at the end of 2020, Brussels estimated the investment needs at 800 billion euros if the EU alone were to target 300 GW of offshore wind power by 2050. Environmental NGOs are calling not to not rush impact studies on marine biodiversity, and WindEurope points out the constraints linked to fishing and transport. For Pierre Tardieu, the achievement of wind turbine objectives requires the use of 7 to 10% of the maritime basin.

France targets 40 gigawatts of offshore wind by shortening tender deadlines

France is aiming for 40 gigawatts of offshore wind power in service by 2050 on all coasts. For the time being, it has inaugurated only one offshore park in Saint-Nazaire, with 80 wind turbines which must ensure the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 700,000 people. Three others are under construction, in Saint-Brieuc, Fécamp and Courseulles-sur-Mer. At the end of March, Emmanuelle Wargon, the president of the Energy Regulation Commission (CRE), which investigates the files, explained that she wanted to change the procedures. ” If we call for tenders every two years calling for between 500 MW and 1 GW of power, we won’t be going fast enough. So it would be nice to call in more power all at once, both to go faster and to diversify “. She clarifies: today, the government follows a “competitive period” procedure: first there is a call to who can compete, then the list of potential competitors, then a discussion with them on the content of the specifications, then the publication of these specifications, and finally the invitation to tender itself. I consider that we no longer need to do that: we might directly publish specifications, which would save us regarding six months, and this reform might apply as of the next calls for tenders ».

(With AFP)

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