Seven members of the European Union along with Norway and the UK announced ambitious plans at the Belgian port of Ostend to increase offshore wind capacity in the North Sea to ‘at least’ 120GW by 2030 on 24 April 2023.

The announcement almost doubled the ambition of a 2022 announcement in Esbjerg, Denmark between four EU member states (Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany) that established a target of 65GW.

UK has also increased its own ambitions for offshore wind generation since 2022, most recently targeting 50GW by 2030, including 5GW of floating offshore wind capacity. To put the targets into context, the UK currently accounts for almost half (14GW) of the 30GW of offshore wind capacity installed in the North Sea.