Offshore network development plans for Europe – joint efforts

The European offshore RES strategy from November 2020 aims at 300 GW offshore wind capacity being installed by 2050 in European waters, with the first 60 GW by 2030. Since then, groups of several countries and European Regions joined forces on political level to agree on joint ambitions, as the task is too big to tackle on national level. In summer 2022, a new European Regulation has entered into force, organizing joint infrastructure planning for the European sea basins, as this is crucial to achieve the ambitions. The new TEN-E regulation EU 2022/869 requests that new offshore network development plans for each European sea basin are to be produced for the three time-horizons 2030, 2040 and 2050. This must be a joint effort of Governments, ENTSO-E and the European Commission, each having to solve a part of this task. This article describes how ENTSO-E and its member TSOs jointly prepare for solving this task and what is deemed necessary for a seamless international development across waters, mainland, energy systems and energy sectors. Multilateral TSO investigations of possible pathways are addressed, including projects currently under development.