Nine European countries met at a summit on Monday in Belgium to seal their common ambition to increase their wind turbine capacity tenfold in the North Sea, a colossal industrial challenge to accelerate the decarbonization of the continent.

The idea is to “make this North Sea the greenest factory in the world for the generation of electricity”, declared on his arrival the Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, at the initiative of this summit in Ostend. which aims to develop wind farms, connection infrastructures, industrial chains, green hydrogen projects…

“Our common goal for wind energy in the North Sea is 120 gigawatts in 2030, and at least 300 GW in 2050,” the leaders of the nine countries said in a column published Monday by the site Politico. The current cumulative capacities are around 30 GW.

“Our path is all mapped out. It is now a question of accelerating the pace”, they sum up. In practice, they want to speed up authorization procedures, better coordinate calls for tenders, “strengthen” production chains, diversify supplies of critical components to reduce their dependence on China…

The leaders of seven European Union countries (France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, Denmark and Luxembourg), Norway and the United Kingdom are present.

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 only.

Luxembourg, on the other hand, is without a coastline: “But funds are needed to finance such projects, is that why I am here? I bring money, and I recover a little energy”, s’ his Prime Minister Xavier Bettel is amused.

In Paris, we point to “gigantic orders of magnitude”.

In the shallow North Sea, wind turbines “can be installed in large numbers” not too far from the coast, “under wind conditions allowing the production of a lot of” green energy at a “particularly competitive” cost, explains the Elysium.

France is targeting 40 gigawatts of offshore wind power in service by 2050 on all coasts.

Asked when he arrived on the Belgian coast about the place of wind power compared to nuclear power, French President Emmanuel Macron felt that the two were complementary.

“If we want to succeed in our transition and carbon neutrality by 2050, we need three pillars: energy sobriety (…), renewable (…) and then nuclear”, he declared.

After a first meeting of four countries in May 2022 in Denmark, 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 to 42.5% by 2030, in particular by speeding up the authorization procedures for infrastructure. Brussels also offered regulatory relief for green industries in mid-March.

However, to achieve the Ostend objectives, “major new investments are needed in production capacity and supporting infrastructure (…) The planned policies are insufficient for the moment”, reacted in a joint statement a hundreds of companies in the sector.

Nacelles, blades, cables… “Europe has technological and industrial leadership in offshore wind power, but does not produce enough of certain crucial elements. A lot of funding is already going to innovation, the challenge is to ‘invest in existing production structures whose capacity must be doubled, tripled,’ Pierre Tardieu of the industrial federation WindEurope told AFP.

European industry should thus manufacture within five years the equivalent of 20 GW of offshore wind turbines per year, against a capacity of approximately 7 currently… at the risk of saturated factories and bottlenecks on the components.

“The turbine manufacturers are currently operating at a loss, hit hard by the logistical disruptions following the Covid, it takes punctual public support”, insists Mr. Tardieu, also noting the massive training and recruitment needs: offshore wind power will require 250,000 jobs in 2030, compared to 80,000 today.

The total cost promises to be colossal: at the end of 2020, Brussels estimated the investment needs at 800 billion euros if the EU aimed for 300 GW of offshore wind power by 2050.

Environmental NGOs call for them not to rush impact studies on marine biodiversity, and WindEurope points out the constraints linked to fishing and transport.

“But to achieve these wind turbine objectives, we only need between 7% to 10% of the maritime basin”, tempers Pierre Tardieu.

04/24/2023 16:58:02 – Ostend (Belgium) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP