Offshore Electricity Infrastructure in Europe - European Wind Energy ...

Towards an Offshore Grid – Further considerations
and DE) under the initiative of the Belgian Minister
of Energy, has evolved into a political initiative with
all ten countries around the North and Irish Sea (BE,
FR, NL, LU, DE, UK, IR, DK, SE and NO). The North
Seas Countries’ Offshore Grid Initiative (NSCOGI)
aims at coordinating, on a multilateral level, offshore
wind and infrastructure developments in the North
Sea. It is more specifically targeted at achieving a
common political and regulatory basis on offshore infrastructure
development within the region. A common
Memorandum of Understanding between all parties
has been signed at the end of 2010 [39]. Much is
expected from this initiative for the facilitation of real
developments. In this framework, TSOs will carry
out a cost-benefit analysis by December 2012. The
OffshoreGrid consortium is in regular contact with
Working Group 1 of the NSCOGI on Grid Configuration.
The preliminary outcomes have been presented to this
working group, and a session on the final results will
be held in October 2011.
Industry level
As imposed by law under the Third Legislative
Package on European Electricity and Gas Markets
[40], European Transmission Grid Operators (TSOs)
for electricity have united under ENTSO-E [41]. This
organisation improves cooperation across national
borders, and is thus crucial for the development of
offshore electricity grids. Within ENTSO-E, two working
groups are relevant in this respect:
• Regional Working Group North Sea under the
System Development Committee,
• WG 2050/Supergrid under the System Development
Committee.
The regulators cooperate voluntarily via the Council of
European Energy Regulators (CEER). A key objective of
the CEER is to facilitate the creation of a single, competitive,
efficient and sustainable EU internal energy
market that works in the public interest. The European
Regulators’ Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG) was
set up by the European Commission in 2003 as its advisory
body on internal energy market issues. ERGEG
launched 7 Electricity Regional Initiatives (ERI, [9]),
with the aim to speed up the integration of Europe’s
national electricity markets. Under the European
Commission’s Third Package [40], all European regulators
are now united in the Agency for the Cooperation
of Energy Regulators (ACER, dissolving ERGEG). ACER
was created in 2010, as imposed by the 3rd package,
to fill the regulatory gap on cross-border issues
and should oversee the cooperation between the
TSOs. Although there are various challenges to face
on regulatory level (cost allocation and profit margins,
compatibility in renewable energy support, etc.), action
on offshore grid issues on the regulator’s side is
currently very limited.
Finally, the initiative ‘The Friends of the Supergrid
(FOSG)’ [42] combines companies in sectors that will
deliver the HVDC infrastructure and related technology
with companies that will develop, install, own and
operate that infrastructure. They have joined because
of a mutual interest in promoting and influencing the
regulatory and policy framework that is required to enable
large-scale interconnection in Europe.
88 OffshoreGrid – Final Report