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European leaders vow to spice up North Sea wind power manufacturing
By Marc BURLEIGH
Ostend, Belgium (AFP) April 24, 2023
9 European international locations pledged at a summit Monday to massively scale up wind energy technology within the North Sea to additional local weather targets and durably transfer additional away from dependency on Russian fossil gas provides.
EU members France, Germany, Eire, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, together with Britain and Norway, signed on to the ambition, set out in a declaration throughout a summit in Belgium’s coastal city of Ostend.
On the similar time, leaders underscored the necessity to defend the prevailing and future offshore infrastructure, following current reviews of a Russian spy vessel within the North Sea and final yr’s sabotage of the Nord Stream fuel pipelines within the Baltic Sea.
The collective purpose is to spice up offshore wind energy technology to 120 gigawatts by 2030 — from simply 30 GW at this time — and at the very least 300 GW by 2050.
That may go to assist meet Europe’s drive for a carbon-neutral future and in response to power “blackmail” from Russia because it pursues its battle in Ukraine, they mentioned.
“Due to Russia’s brutal battle on Ukraine, it has made it completely clear that we have to produce extra power ourselves,” mentioned Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen.
The European Union has calculated that putting in sufficient offshore wind generators to succeed in that capability in 2050 will value 800 billion euros ($900 billion).
“We are going to take all related and applicable steps to speed up regulatory and allowing processes for renewable power and the associated grid infrastructure,” the leaders mentioned.
The ambition was to make the North Sea “the largest inexperienced energy plant on the planet,” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo mentioned in a information convention flanked by the opposite leaders.
– European self-reliance –
French President Emmanuel Macron, backed by the prime ministers of the Netherlands and Luxembourg, insisted that the experience and gear to be ploughed into the mission ought to come from Europe, not elsewhere.
“We wish a European business to make this, and never repeat the errors we have typically remodeled previous many years,” he mentioned.
The remark was apparently directed at China, which at the moment dominates the photo voltaic panels market and is a frontrunner in supplying wind generators. The European Union is searching for to shift away from its reliance on China by fostering its personal industries.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz highlighted the function the EU might play as a regional power supplier.
“The power transport traces are Europe’s very important arteries,” he mentioned. “We aren’t solely producing power for ourselves but additionally for our neighbours.”
WindEurope, the federation representing Europe’s wind power business, endorsed the summit’s ambitions as achievable.
Nevertheless it highlighted an absence of “satisfactory funding mechanisms” and recruitment within the sector.
The organisation mentioned Europe must construct the offshore infrastructure so as to add 20 GW in output per yr, but the sector at the moment has capability for simply seven GW yearly, with provide chain bottlenecks for cables, substations and foundations, and within the availability of offshore wind vessels.
Britain has the largest fleet of offshore wind farms, 45 of them, at the moment producing 14 GW, with plans to increase capability to 50 GW by 2030.
Germany’s 30 wind farms produce eight GW, adopted by the Netherlands with 2.8 GW and Denmark and Belgium each with 2.3 GW.
The opposite collaborating international locations produce lower than a gigawatt from their current installations however share ambitions to enormously ramp up wind power capability.
Associated Hyperlinks
Wind Power Information at Wind Day by day