Not everyone is convinced that the EU can meet its goals to ramp up the production of offshore wind power. But with a dose of strategic thinking, and a bit of luck, the new North Sea economy could have a big impact
. Its newly minted corporate champions could offer Europe’s best, and perhaps last, chance to stay globally relevant. And it could alter the continent’s political and economic balance by creating an alternative to the sputtering Franco-German engine.
The awful weather is not always a boon: its vagaries can also stress the grid. Helpfully, technology and falling costs are allowing windpower operators to combat the elements. One way to do this is with more interconnections, first between the farms and land—today most wind farms have one link to the shore, which is inefficient—then among the farms themselves. Half of the 3to be tendered by Norway will have the option to create links to more countries.
One bidder, a joint venture between Orsted, a Danish offshore wind developer that is the world’s largest, and, a local $150bn pension fund, envisages a modular design, with components made onshore and assembled at sea. “We expect it to still be functional in 100 years’ time,” says Brendan Bradley of Arup, an engineering firm that is advising the bid.
North Sea countries are an excellent place to store and process data. Low electricity prices make for cheaper number-crunching, which is energy-intensive. A cold climate means data centres can be cooled just by circulating outside air instead of using costly cooling systems. The region boasts a highly skilled workforce, stable institutions and some of the world’s most enlightened data laws.
But Mr Wolf’s principle still holds for some industries—and may benefit other northerly locations not directly on the North Sea. In Narvik, farther north on the Norwegian Sea, Aker Horizons, a firm that invests in renewable energy, wants to establish a green industrial hub powered by offshore wind. In Boden, a Swedish town near the eastern coast of the Scandinavian Peninsula,2 Green Steel is erecting a new steel mill, Europe’s first in half a century.
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