Welcome to Windspeed

Offshore wind energy deployment can significantly contribute to increasing the share of renewable energy in Europe's energy mix. However, competing uses of the sea, costs, grid integration and other barriers are important challenges to the development of offshore wind.

Windspeed aims to assist in overcoming these obstacles by developing a roadmap defining a realistic target and a development pathway up to 2030 or offshore wind energy in the Central and Southern North Sea (Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the UK). The roadmap will also identify barriers and potential surplus conditions in the North-European electricity grid along with policy recommendations on how to tackle these.

Windspeed will deliver a decision support system (DSS) tool using geographical information system (GIS) software. The DSS tool will produce overlaying maps, showing spatial representation of offshore wind energy potentials in relation to non-wind seas functions and environmental aspects. The tool will also facilitate the quantification of trade-offs between electricity generation costs from offshore wind and constraints due to non-wind sea functions and nature conservation. This tool will provide a better foundation for decision making by policy makers in terms of prioritising and allocating space of the development of offshore wind the Central and Southern North Sea.