The trade associations of the German offshore wind industry and the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation have presented the expansion figures for the first half of 2023. According to the figures prepared by the consulting firm Deutsche WindGuard, 24 offshore wind turbines with a capacity of 229MW were newly connected to the grid in Germany in the first six months of the year.This means that a total of 1,563 offshore wind turbines with a total capacity of 8,385MW are now in operation in the German North Sea and Baltic Sea. The Arcadis Ost 1 project currently under construction continues to make progress and will, in all likelihood, be commissioned before the end of the year. The German offshore wind industry is expected to install an additional 22GW of capacity at sea by 2030.
In the Ostend Declaration, the nine countries bordering the North Sea underlined their commitment to the expansion targets for offshore wind energy. By 2030, 120 GW and by 2050, 300 GW of offshore wind energy capacity are to be installed, with the United Kingdom adding another 100 GW. Cooperation on the future production of green hydrogen from offshore wind energy and the expansion of hydrogen infrastructure is to be strengthened. The non-binding targets agreed by the EU member states for the Baltic Sea of 22.5 GW by 2030, 34.6 GW by 2040, and 46.8 GW by 2050 were reaffirmed.
In order to be able to achieve this expansion of offshore wind energy in the North and Baltic Seas, the right course must now be set immediately, as stated by the industry organisations BWE, BWO, the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation, VDMA Power Systems, WAB e.V., and WindEnergy Network e.V. Among other things, there is a need for pre-qualification criteria for a resilient supply chain and precisely targeted qualitative tender criteria to differentiate in the competition.
