On 19 November 2020, the European Commission published an EU Strategy to harness the potential of offshore renewable energy for a climate neutral future. This Offshore Renewable Strategy was widely anticipated as part of the European Green Deal and foreseen in the Commission's 2020 Work Programme. Consultation with stakeholders took place over the course of 2020, including an online public consultation that closed on 24 September 2020.

The Offshore Renewable Strategy aims to dramatically increase the EU's production of electricity from offshore renewable energy sources from 12 gigawatts (GW) at the present time to over 60GW by 2030 and 300GW by 2050. Whereas wind power is the only offshore renewable technology that currently operates on a commercial basis, the European Commission also sees huge potential in other renewable technologies such as tidal and wave power, floating solar energy, and algae for biofuels. In terms of offshore wind power, the commercial development of floating technologies will allow exploitation of a much wider range of potential offshore locations.

The strategy seeks to facilitate the necessary investment of almost €800 billion in offshore renewables between now and 2050, by increasing certainty for investors and smoothing the path for investments, easing bottlenecks, and finding the best combination of public and private finance. Regional cooperation is essential to reaching this goal and ensuring that renewable technologies are developed not only in the North Sea (where most offshore wind projects are currently located) but also in the Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, Atlantic Ocean, and outermost regions and overseas territories. The EU will promote a pan-European supply chain involving multiple regions in coastal and inland areas, and look to enhance maritime spatial planning for a successful large-scale deployment of offshore renewable energy. Among the thorny issues to be resolved is the interaction between offshore energy production and other maritime industries such as fishing. The EU should provide a predictable legal framework that promotes innovative and cost-effective projects. It is important to strengthen supply chains and support continuous innovation in the offshore renewables sector, where Europe is the leader in terms of both market size and development of new technologies. European leadership in offshore renewables helps to support valuable green jobs across the EU (and many more to come as investment is scaled up), yet the EU faces strong competition from China, the United Kingdom and other countries that are investing heavily in this sector.

In terms of EU financing, the strategy notes the continued importance of mainstream EU programmes such as the Connecting Europe Facility for cross-border infrastructure, the Horizon Europe programme for research and innovation, as well as the new InvestEU programme. It also heavily emphasises the importance of the NextGenerationEU recovery plan, in particular the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF), which has a total budget of 672.5 billion Euros of which at least 37 % should be spent on climate related actions. RRF projects need to be committed by the end of 2023 so it is essential that EU Member States present a pipeline of mature projects that immediately eligible for funding.  

The Commission adopted a legislative proposal on 14 July 2021 to revise the Renewable Energy Directive. This includes a provision that would oblige Member States to cooperate on the amount of offshore renewable generation to be deployed within each sea basin by 2050, and increase their cross-border cooperation on renewable energy, inter alia, through offshore hubs.

The Parliament recently adopted an own-initiative resolution on the offshore renewable energy strategy. The ITRE committee was responsible for this file and appointed Morten Petersen (EPP, Denmark) as its rapporteur. The final report was adopted by the ITRE committee on 6 December 2021 and endorsed in the plenary session of 15 February 2022.

References:

• EP Legislative Observatory, Procedure file on a European strategy for offshore renewable energy,  2021/2012(INI).
• European Commission, Communication on the European Green Deal, COM(2019) 640

• European Commission, Communication on an EU Strategy to harness the potential of offshore renewable energy for a climate neutral future, COM(2020) 741
• EP Legislative Observatory, A European strategy for offshore renewable energy,  2021/2012(INI).
• European Parliament, Resolution of 15 January 2020 on the European Green Deal, 2019/2956(RSP)

Further reading:

• European Parliament, EPRS, Offshore Wind Energy in Europe, Briefing, October 2020
• European Parliament, IPOL, Impact of the use of offshore wind and other marine renewables on European fisheries, Study produced for the PECH committee, November 2020.

Author: Agnieszka Widuto, Members' Research Service, legislative-train@europarl.europa.eu