The plenary session was opened by Ulrich Stridbaek, Senior Director and Head of group regulatory affairs at Ørsted, and the WindEurope Offshore Working Group Chair. Sandor Gaastra (Director General for Energy, Ministry of Economic Affairs of Netherlands) emphasised in this session the importance of cooperation to create the right conditions for the development of offshore wind. For the industry, a high degree of medium-to-long term visibility are necessary to support the current trend of growth and cost reduction. He pointed out that the Netherlands is planning to build a further 7GW of offshore wind over the next decade which is to start coming online after 2023. Christopher Jones (Deputy Director General for Energy at the European Commission) added that the development of country-specific offshore wind farms and transmission assets will become less relevant. Accordingly to him new cross-border solutions, such as hybrid projects linking windfarms to interconnectors and allowing them to feed electricity into different markets, will be key to meeting the target set by the European Commission.
The panellists also stressed the importance of long-term visibility, including sufficient volumes of deployment, to encourage the necessary competition to drive further cost reductions in offshore wind. Innovation, such as developing new transmission technologies or the ‘artificial island’ concept, will also be an important driver toward further development of offshore wind. Many challenges still remain, and having the right set of regulations in place is crucial to facilitate cross-border projects. The North Sea Forum is working to enable further cooperation and ensure a sustainable, secure and affordable energy supply in the North Seas countries.
On 29 November, North Seas Energy country representatives discussed the progress with stakeholders in four working group meetings (support groups). PROMOTioN partners from Tractebel, TenneT, Groningen Center of Energy Law, and the German Offshore Windenergy Foundation joined the meeting of Support Group 2 and took part in discussions on the way forward regarding the development of offshore grid infrastructure and the respective regulatory framework.