Cross-border projects can enable cost-effective offshore wind development by combining geographic advantages with coordinated planning.
Europe is accelerating its offshore wind build-out, where especially the concept of energy islands / hybrids are dominating the conversation about how to scale the deployment of offshore wind effectively in the future.
However, this concept is still facing technological, regulatory and commercial hurdles, making it equally important to also consider alternatives in the meantime. Here, the concept of cross-border offshore wind projects could be a pragmatic solution that can deliver tangible progress.
Based on a number of cases, Aegir Insights has explored the potential benefits of cross-border offshore wind projects in a recent published analysis.
Our study shows that offshore wind farms radially connected from one country to a neighboring country such as Denmark-Germany or Ireland-UK, could:
🔹 Enable faster deployment by tapping into underutilized sea space
🔹 Reduce costs (LCoE) and improve annual production
🔹 Boost revenues by accessing higher-priced markets compared to single-country offshore wind farms.
Such bilateral cross-border projects could serve as pragmatic early steps toward Europe’s broader interconnection ambitions, accelerating offshore wind deployment in a (cost) effective way, while also acting as an intermediate and complementary solution until energy islands and hybrid systems can be fully established.
Encouragingly, since the publication of our analysis, this line of thinking is gaining traction among government officials. In June for example, Denmark and Germany renewed their energy cooperation, explicitly including cross-border offshore projects.
To dive deeper into our analysis, read Aegir Insights' Principal - Regional Lead Europe Thomas Hwan Jensen's opinion piece 'Why choose UK floating wind over Irish fixed-bottom? The case for cross-border projects.'
Would you like to get a walk-through of our analysis? Please reach out to us here.
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