Blustery, relatively shallow, and a stone’s throw from northern Europe, the North Sea’s natural energy will supply clean, affordable power long into the future. And this abundance of renewable energy sources is inspiring innovators to create new green technologies that could revolutionise notoriously dirty industries and create a wealth of new opportunities.
At the moment, more than 80% of Europe’s offshore wind capacity connected to the grid is in the North Sea – more than 25 gigawatts of clean energy generation. Now the North Sea nations plan to ramp up renewable activity even more. In 2024, the governments of Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, joined by France, Norway, Luxembourg and the UK, increased their offshore wind targets from 30GW to 120GW by 2030, and to 300GW by 2050. This equates to more than 50% of the renewable generation needed to deliver a climate-neutral EU.
