My reflections from the North Sea Summit

The second meeting of the North Sea Summit in Ostend, Belgium made clear that accelerating the energy transition and achieving energy security remains at the top of the European agenda.

The North Sea Summit last month drew more than 100 high-level government and industrial participants, including president, prime ministers, energy ministers and the CEOs of the companies best positioned to drive the clean energy transition forward as we reduce Europe’s reliance on carbon-emitting fossil fuels. GE Grid Solutions was privileged to be among them.

When we talk about energy and the North Sea, we are, of course, talking about the potential for renewable power generated by offshore wind. The Esbjerg Declaration, adopted at the first North Sea Summit held in 2022 in Esbjerg, Denmark, set an ambitious target for Germany, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands to deliver at least 65 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030. This year, nine countries committed to a combined 120 GW of North Sea offshore wind capacity by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050.

As European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen noted at the summit: “Renewables are crucial for us to reach our goals in 2050. It is all about speeding up.”

These numbers are astounding. It will require many moving pieces to come into place – not just offshore platforms and mammoth turbines to capture the wind, but a state-of-the-art electrical grid. We must ask ourselves what we need to do now to position Europe to meet these goals.

Achieving these power generation numbers will mean nothing unless we have a grid that can support larger amounts of renewable energy across the whole of Europe. A modernized grid must be able to transmit high-voltage current over long distances, optimize renewable energy contributions through interoperability, and keep it all safe and secure. Renewable integration requires new grid solutions to address inertia, frequency control, grid forming, monitoring and diagnostics.

This is not merely a feat of engineering. It will require public-private partnership and industry-wide cooperation at a great scale.

If Europe wants energy security, it must, first of all, acknowledge the critical nature of its grid and build a cybersecure ecosystem. It must also create a business framework that protects and nurtures European manufacturers at every link in the supply chain. The two essential pillars for that framework are planning and commitment. It’s not just promises and market visibility. It requires orders that are fully awarded and fully booked. Energy customers must work in concert with renewable energy manufacturers so that capacity additions align with long-term demand. It is also essential to rethink the competitive bidding and contractual process to favor societal value as well as cost optimization.

We can no longer work project by project in isolation. Only a set of several projects with a very high degree of commonality – from a technical and project management approach – can deliver the level of synergies that bring reduced lead-times, procurement and construction cost-savings, better organizational learning, as well as deeper learnings from quality events. Energy systems must as well be interoperable. Interoperability will require even a higher degree of standardization and collaborative development between systems provider and customers.

For example, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) is the most efficient way to transmit power over long distance and is therefore essential for an offshore electricity grid. HVDC technology in use today can reach from the North Sea to the center of Europe, enabling energy generated by wind to travel between multiple grid terminals, in multiple directions and to multiple countries. We aspire to make this European HVDC grid interoperable, multi-terminal, and more simple, reliable and secure. This will require customers across Europe to agree to adopt compatible technologies across multiple projects.

This is not wishful thinking. TenneT , the Dutch-German transmission systems operator, has?begun laying the foundation for this with its standardized 2 GW HVDC offshore program designed to be multi-terminal ready. In March, GE Grid Solutions entered into an agreement with TenneT to build five platforms ?– three in the Dutch North Sea and two in the German North Sea.

Systems that are scalable and repeatable will put Europe on the fast track to meet its admirable and ambitious energy goals efficiently, quickly and cost effectively. Collaboration at a level unseen before among all stakeholders will be key.

*Left to right: Philippe Piron, President & CEO at GE Grid Solutions & GE Power Conversion, Claudio Facchin, CEO at Hitachi Energy, Stefan Kapferer, CEO at 50Hertz, Chris Peeters, CEO at Elia Group,?Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission President, Christian Rynning T?nnessen, CEO at Statkraft, Hilde Tonne, CEO at Statnett, Cordi O’Hara, President at National Grid Ventures and Manon van Beek, CEO at TenneT.