At a summit in Ostend, Belgium, leaders from European countries surrounding the North Sea pledged on April 24 to rapidly scale up offshore wind power generation in the region to boost energy security, media reports.
Leaders from seven EU countries, alongside non-EU Norway and Britain, pledged to accelerate their buildout of wind farms, develop "energy islands" or linked renewable generation sites at sea, and collaborate on carbon capture and renewable hydrogen projects regionally.
"I'm thrilled at this summit to have more than 120 of our finest companies present here, who will be working together between them, but also often in a public-private partnership to make sure that we can realize the things we announce", Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said.
In his turn, French President Emmanuel Macron called for industrial development to be home-grown.
"We don't want to reproduce the errors we made a few decades ago; for example, we rolled out solar panels on a massive scale and imported lots of the needed materials. This, therefore, provides an opportunity for resilience, sovereignty, and a 'made in Europe' approach," the President noted.
In a joint statement, the countries' leaders pledged to aim for 120GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030 in the North Sea and northern seas, including the Irish Sea, and 300GW by 2050.
That would quadruple the countries' 25GW of existing North Sea wind capacity. Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, and Luxembourg, which do not have a coast, also signed the pledge.
The UK inked the declaration.
Final investment decisions in European offshore wind farms hit a 10-year low last year.
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