Europe doubles down on offshore wind to drive industrial competitiveness

> Europe’s Governments want to accelerate the build-out of offshore wind. Many large industrial companies are already signing power purchase agreements (PPAs) with offshore wind farms. Government support to help unlock such investments is **essential** to deliver the volumes needed, both of new offshore wind farms and investment in industry electrification.

> To that end the offshore wind industry is calling for a **New Deal** on offshore wind, where Governments commit to build 15 GW a year of new offshore wind from 2031 to 2040, and on the back of that, the industry commits to reduce the costs by 30%. The North Seas Heads of Government Summit in Hamburg in January is the perfect moment to agree on that New Deal.

> Lots of things are **not going well** in offshore wind in Europe today: some big projects are postponed because the revenues don’t cover the costs, some projects are delayed because the grid isn’t ready. One large offshore wind farm in Germany is even built but standing idle, waiting for its grid connection.

> But lots of **good things are also happening** in offshore wind: despite the challenge around business case, investments are up this year. 6 new projects have taken Final Investment Decision: **3 in Poland, 2 in Germany and 1 in the UK.** These FIDs total €22bn and cover 6 GW of new capacity. One of the Polish wind farms was the largest ever private investment in Poland. Europe’s offshore wind supply chain is growing. It can make at least 10 GW a year of turbines today, comfortably more than what we’ll build over the next 4 years.

> The current project pipeline and auction schedules should get Europe from **37 GW to 80 GW** of offshore wind by 2030.