EU raises offshore wind target to 300GW by 2050

The EU has increased its offshore wind capacity target to 300GW by 2050, today's European offshore renewable energy strategy presented by the European Commission shows.

The commission aims to increase the EU's offshore wind capacity to 60GW by 2030 and 300GW by 2050, up from 12GW currently installed.

The commission wants to complement this with 40GW of ocean energy and other emerging technologies, such as floating wind and solar, by 2050.

Projected installed capacity would increase to only around 90GW by 2050 under current policies, the commission said.

The EU's offshore wind capacity accounts for 42pc of the global total, followed by the UK with 9.7GW and China with 6.8GW.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55pc by 2030 will require more than 80pc of electricity to come from renewables, an earlier impact assessment cited in the commission's strategy said.

The commission plans to launch EU-wide tenders from next year, under a new renewable energy financing mechanism that aims to facilitate participation and benefits with land-locked EU states.

Earlier this month, the German government set a new target of 20GW of installed offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 40GW by 2040. The Netherlands plans to increase its offshore wind capacity to 11.5GW by 2030 and an additional increase of 20-40GW by 2050, Dutch transmission system operator Tennet said.

Offshore wind technologies

Hybrid offshore wind farms will play an important role in the planned increase in renewable capacity. Up to 7GW of these projects are already in the pipeline. They save money and space and improve energy flows between countries, European wind lobby group Windeurope said.

Floating offshore wind capacity is expected to grow. Europe has two small floating wind farms today but will have 300MW by 2022 and aims to have 7GW by 2030, Windeurope added.

By Felicia Grosse