Regulatory set-up for hybrid offshore wind projects

Europe is determined to become the world’s first climate neutral continent by 2050. To this end, replacing fossil fuels with renewable electricity is the single most important driver for decarbonization. This entails European power demand will grow by as much as 150% by 2050.

To match this growth in demand, European buildout of renewables must be accelerated – and not least offshore wind generation, where 400-450GW is expected to supply as much as a quarter of European power by 2050.

Realizing this potential will require a rapid expansion of not just offshore wind generation, but also offshore transmission grids. Here, the traditional approach of a single radial connection per offshore wind farm will not be the most efficient solution.

By instead connecting offshore wind farms to two or more markets at the same time, essentially combining offshore wind farms and interconnectors into a ‘hybrid offshore wind project’, comes with both lower costs and benefits to the energy system. This note introduces the concept of hybrid projects, analyses the current regulatory setup and identifies the necessary changes needed to facilitate an integrated ‘hybrid’ approach to future offshore hybrid wind buildout.