Tickets to build offshore wind in the North Sea pre-2030 are selling out fast.

The six North Sea countries have combined targets of 120 GW by 2030, which makes the North Sea one of the biggest offshore wind markets in the world.

Close to 60 GW are already installed or under development, and auctions for large capacities are planned for 2023 in five of the six countries around the North Sea. Therefore, the gaps to meeting the 2030 targets are getting smaller:

• Belgium is almost halfway towards the 2030 target, with the gap to be filled by auctions coming in 2024 and later.
• Denmark will almost have allocated enough capacity to reach its 2030 target of 13.9 GW, after auctions in 2023 allocate 9 GW.
• Germany has two auctions totaling 8.8 GW planned in 2023, and further auctions planned for 2024 will likely fill the remaining gap towards the 2030 target of 30 GW.
• The Netherlands needs an additional 14 GW to meet the 2030 target, which is planned to be allocated through a pipeline of auctions, starting with 4 GW in 2023.
• Norway is starting the journey towards 30 GW by 2040 with two auctions in 2023 totaling 3 GW. The tendering processes for the auctions are announced later today.
• The UK is more than halfway towards the ambitious target of 50 GW by 2030. Almost 22 GW are installed or under construction, and 7 GW with secured CfDs are under development. In addition, the UK has around 50 GW of leased projects currently working on securing a route-to-market. The CfD round 5 auction starts tomorrow and will give some of these projects a route-to-market, while the rest will have to wait for future CfD rounds or find alternative routes.

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