Offshore Wind Takes Centre Stage in Europe's Energy Transition

Dear reader,

Last week included some big news items, which highlighted the huge role that will be played by offshore wind in Europe’s energy transition. 9 European countries signed the Ostend Declaration at a North Sea Summit, pledging to increase their offshore wind capacity to 300GW by 2050. This is a doubling of the commitment for 150GW by 2050 made at the first North Sea Summit last year – with this year’s summit also doubling the number of committed countries. Last year only included the four EU countries with North Sea coasts; this year, five additional countries were added. The Ostend Declaration countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK) also set an interim goal of 120GW of offshore wind capacity by the end of this decade.?

Offshore wind’s growing economic importance was underlined as Sweden’s Trade Minister celebrated the award of a multibillion-dollar deal to Hitachi Energy (formed from ABB's power grids business). Hitachi Energy will supply multiple offshore and onshore HVDC converter stations and associated infrastructure to accelerate the integration of bulk renewables into European power grids. The agreement includes an initial commitment to deploy six 2GW renewable integration systems, five of which will connect offshore wind farms to the Dutch grid and the sixth to the German grid. The deal is one of Sweden's largest industrial orders ever and is expected to create around 1,000 new jobs, primarily in Ludvika, west of Stockholm.

Another sign of the times for offshore wind comes with the announcement by Denmark's Cyan Renewables , which said that it has partnered with Norway’s Ulstein Design & Solutions B.V. to design FFIVs. FFIVs or Floating Foundation Installation Vessels are ships designed for efficient transport and installation of wind turbine foundations offshore. Check the graphic for how large the vessels will be. Also note that Cyan is financed by Singapore interests, helping to join the dots identifying how offshore oil expertise is transitioning into offshore wind power.

Further large scale financial announcements were made last week, as Sweden’s Stegra said that it was planning to raise another EUR 1.5 billion as part of an equity push, which would be one of the largest deals in Europe this year.?

Singapore-based BW ESS said that it would invest SEK 1 billion into Swedish energy storage company Ingrid Capacity , to deploy in over 20 large battery facilities totaling 400MW primarily in the strained energy network in southern Sweden by 2025.

The disappointing news of the week came from Oslo, where a CCS project to capture emissions from a waste plant, was paused for a year due to projections of large cost overruns, in another sign of the global challenges to the holy grail of carbon storage.

The Top 10 Nordic Green News stories for Week 17

1. North Sea countries commit to increasing offshore wind power capacity to 300GW by 2050 (April 26)
2. Hitachi Energy wins multibillion-dollar deal for offshore wind power in North Sea (April 28) Hafslund Celsio 's carbon capture project halted due to large cost overruns (April 27)Swedish Stegra enters final financing phase (April 25)
3. Denmark′s EWII invests in giant batteries to support renewable energy transition (April 24)
4. Singapore-based company invests SEK 1 billion in Swedish Ingrid Capacity ’s battery project (April 28)
5. Cyan Renewables partners with Ulstein Design & Solutions B.V. to develop FFIVs for offshore wind industry (April 28) Modvion and Mets? Wood ( Mets? Group ) partner for laminated wood supply for wooden wind turbines (April 25) Fortum launches battery materials recycling facility in Finland (April 26)Finnish state upping its investment in lithium mining (April 26)

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What we’re reading - our favourite articles from global media last week?

• Last part of the EU's new, tough climate legislation hammered out (Swedish, blog)
• EUs Bid to Swap Russia Gas for Offshore Wind Is Falling Short (Bloomberg)
• UK and Netherlands to build new North Sea power link (Financial Times)
• Coal demand dropped in Europe over winter despite energy crisis (Financial Times)
• Spain breaks record temperature for April (BBC)
• British industry in push to make carbon capture a reality (Financial Times)
• The world’s top EV investors (FDI Intelligence)