North Sea energy island to help tiny Belgium near-triple offshore wind
Cabinet supports plan to boost wind at sea to up to 5.8GW with turbines of up to 17MW and build artificial North Sea island this decade
Belgium plans to nearly triple its offshore wind capacity by 2030 and connect new wind farms to the mainland via an artificial energy island in the North Sea to be built in the second half of the decade.
The nation's cabinet on Friday said it ‘took note’ of a memorandum by new energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten on plans for 3.15-3.5GW in new capacity in the future ‘Princess Elisabeth Zone’ near the sea border with France, which should be connected to an energy island. That means the cabinet in principle supports the plans, but they will require a more definite approval once details have been worked out.
The new wind farms would boost the north-western European country’s offshore wind capacity from a current 2.3GW to between 5.45GW and 5.8GW.
Belgium despite only having a tiny North Sea coastline of 67km, ranks sixth in the world in operating offshore wind capacity (after the UK, China, Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark).
Network operator Elia is requested to work out the details for the connection of the Princess Elisabeth Zone and to submit them to the cabinet for approval, the federal government said in a note, adding that Elia has also been asked to provide the option of connecting interconnectors once details are worked out.
“We are almost tripling our capacity to a total of 5.8GW, accounting for 25% of the total electricity production. This is how we turn our North Sea into a sustainable energy plant.”
A tender for new offshore wind capacity could take place in mid-2023, Elia said.
Experience in neighbouring Germany has shown that building the large new grid infrastructure necessary to connect offshore wind energy to inland household and industry consumers can be hold up for years by not-in-my-backyard protests.
Elia said a study on a possible energy island is slated to be completed in coming weeks.
Next to grid links for future offshore wind farms, Elia together with grid operators in the UK and Denmark is also looking into a possible grid link of the energy island to those countries as another interconnector.
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