Despite commitments made during the Paris Agreement to curb greenhouse emissions, we’re still dangerously off the mark. “Countries need to double and triple their 2030 reduction commitments to be aligned with the Paris target,” says Sir Robert Watson, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The world is responding with an alarming acceleration of the effects of climate change. Several countries have marked their hottest days on record within just the past five years. The rate of ice loss now crosses into worst case scenario conditions.
We’re in the middle of a slowly unfolding disaster. Scientists and climate experts make it clear that all countries need to aim higher to prevent irreversible, catastrophic changes to the climate and the world’s ecosystems. “There’s clearly a need for higher ambition levels if we’re serious about climate mitigation”, says Petteri Talas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Association.
Escalating Responses
In Europe, leaders are already working on recalibrating goals. At only 24 pages long, the Green New Deal is deceptively short. Yet this document holds the ambitions of a whole continent to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and spans directives for all the sectors including agriculture, transport, and industry.
At the heart of this deal is the European Climate Law, which will enshrine the policies outlined in the Green New Deal into law. A part of that deal is to slash emissions to 55 percent less than what it was in 1990. Major emitters such as the UK and Germany have already made aggressive reduction goals.
As the energy sector accounts for around 75 percent of all of Europe’s carbon emissions, these goals will entail a deep decarbonisation effort and a rapid shift to renewable energy sources in the coming decade. Achieving carbon neutrality by 2050 means renewables will have to supply at least 32 percent of Europe’s power demands by 2030.
To that end, several committees have been tasked to make sure members stay their course. “The EU has adopted a growing set of policy instruments to drive the energy transition – a process that is ongoing,” says Sebastian Oberthur, an Environment & Sustainable Development at the Institute for European Studies.
While all are interconnected in their goals to reduce emissions, two legislative instruments in particular are key to propelling change in the energy sector: the Renewable Energy Directive, which aims to increase the share of renewable energy to 32 percent by 2030; and the Energy Efficiency Directive, which will focus on improving energy efficiency.
Offshore Wind: The Lynchpin
The offshore wind sector will be a major player in the transitions to come. Compared to other energy sources, it has already proven to be commercially viable. “Auction prices showed it’s now cheaper to build offshore wind than new gas or coal plants,” says Giles Dickson, CEO of WindEurope. It’s also growing rapidly, generating 50 percent more electricity in the first half of 2020 than it did the previous year.
Offshore wind is best positioned to shoulder the weight of phasing out technologies and industries that rely on fossil fuel-based energy sources, such as combustion-powered cars. “To replace this they desperately need to invest in alternative power sources. I believe wind is probably the best option, or at least one of the most viable routes here,” says Bruce Wen, senior consultant at consultancy firm BJSS.
Offshore wind will also be instrumental in cutting Europe’s relationship with a long-standing major polluter: coal. Wind farms will become a necessary addition to the energy mix of coal-dependent nations like Poland. The country is one of the few not to pledge carbon neutrality by 2050, citing the need for more time to transition away from fossil fuels. However, it has revealed plans to generate 8 to 11GW of offshore wind capacity by 2040.
UK’s Race to 40GW
As a pioneer and the nation with the most number of offshore wind farms in the world, all eyes are on the UK for setting the benchmark for offshore wind use. And the nation’s goals are nothing short of windy. Boris Johnson has pledged a country powered by wind by 2030: “Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle, the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands,” said Johnson during a conference for the Conservative party back in October 2020.
Getting there will mean increasing the UK’s current capacity to 40GW by 2030, or more than 10GW in the next decade. Ramping up production up to speed will mean making big changes to how–and where–offshore wind farms are deployed.
Barriers to 100GW
But despite 2020 being a record year for offshore wind, the momentum is still too slow to propel Europe where it needs to be to meet climate commitments by 2030. “We’re not currently building enough to deliver on that, let alone the more ambitious volumes needed to deliver the Green Deal,” says Dickson.
The problem is more regulatory than technological in nature. Improvements in supply chain, manufacturing parts, and better and larger turbines have significantly contributed to cutting prices per MW. Getting consent for deployment, however, is another beast entirely. Contracts and permits for new projects currently take too long to be awarded, held back by a confluence of exclusionary and sweeping environmental protection policies and low buy-in from local communities.
The UK’s Contracts for Difference (CfD) bidding scheme has done well over the past decade in enabling investment into the sector. However, getting to 40GW by 2030 will mean allocating even more budget and awarding contracts more frequently than twice a year. “If we had annual auctions, it would smooth things out for developers. It would reduce project risk and cut down on these periods of hiatus. It would also smooth things out for some of the consenting bodies and the supply chain. The delivery cycles tend to be very boom-and-bust,” says Zoe Keeton, head of policy and regulation at Innogy, a utilities company.
Spreading out wind farms will also be important for stabilising both production and pricing. Most of the UK’s offshore wind farms are clustered around the east of England, according to renewable energy developer SSE Renewables. Even distribution can cancel out the variability of output levels that arise from differing weather conditions.
Building on shallow seabeds won’t be enough, both for Europe’s 2030 ambitions and the global drive towards net zero. Floating turbines are forecasted to supply around 10 percent of the 100GW mix. Around 80 percent of offshore’s potential lies in deep waters. Yet as the technology is fairly nascent, the governments will need strategic policies that enable faster development in the sector if we are to unlock its potential in time for delivering capacity commitments.
Delivering 100GW by 2030 will not be easy. Success will require cutting the administrative red tape that slows down the deployment of offshore wind farms, as well as investing in pushing offshore wind beyond shallow waters.
