WindEurope brings together European ports serving the wind industry. This platform intends to provide an opportunity for exchange of best practice, know-how and to jointly discuss opportunities and challenges that ports face as the offshore wind industry grows.
Read the ports statement
View the infographic
Recent activities and news
- Port of Cromarty Firth has joined WindEurope 14 October 2020
- WindEurope welcomes port of Gdynia 29 July 2020
- Wind turbine blades for a new wind energy project of Iberdrola arrive at the port of Bilbao 5 May 2020
- Port of Amsterdam to build offshore wind hub 23 April 2020
- Eemshaven base port for world’s largest offshore wind farm 11 March 2020
- Europe’s largest renewable hydrogen project starts in Groningen 28 February 2020
- WindEurope welcomes Ports of Normandy as a new member 19 December 2019
- Summary of 2019 activities 12 December 2019
- Full industrialisation of offshore wind requires collaboration & communication between ports 27 November 2019
- Ports Platform and Floating TF joint meeting and visit in Port of Port-la-Nouvelle 1 October 2019
- First helicopter flight for Heliport Eemshaven 13 September 2019
- Ports Platform meeting and visit to Eemshaven Port 20 May 2019
- Vattenfall chooses Port of IJmuiden as maintenance hub for Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm 15 April 2019
- Internal meeting and meet & greet lunch in Bilbao – WindEurope’s conference and exhibition event (Bilbao) 2 April 2019
- Internal Ports Platform meeting and joint meeting with TF Floating (Brussels) 26 February 2019
WindEurope Ports Platform
Offshore wind today represents 2% of EU power demand. Europe now has a total installed offshore wind capacity of 20.4 GW (July 2019). This corresponds to more than 4,800 grid-connected wind turbines in 106 offshore wind farms across 11 countries. Offshore wind is expected to grow up to 90 GW in the next decade to comply with Europe’s environmental goals and National Energy and Climate Plans. This nearly four times the current installed capacity and will require the doubling of annual installations rate as from 2025.
What is the role of WindEurope’s Ports Platform?
As part of this energy transformation, ports are growing their businesses to support offshore wind energy in increasingly sophisticated ways. Ports actively contribute to cost reduction and efficiency.
As practices evolve, multi-port strategies mean that cooperation between ports will be stronger than ever. For this reason, WindEurope launched the Offshore Wind Ports Platform, which brings together ports with active operations and interests in offshore wind to share best practices and engage with industry and policy-makers. Through the Ports Platform, offshore wind ports share knowledge, align on communication priorities, and speak with one voice to key stakeholders.
Who are the Ports representing the Ports platform?
The Ports Platform is currently composed of 14 ports. Their expertise varies across a multitude of activities: energy, cargo, bulk, shipyard, tourism and fishing. Most of the Ports are experienced in the offshore wind industry. Together, they covered over 8,000 MW of capacity installed and over 6,000 MW of O&M, mostly in the North Sea. The Ports allocated 430 ha to offshore wind-related activities (approximately 10% of the total area of the Ports). While some Ports cover the full wind energy value chain, others are specialised in specific services (preassembly, installation, O&M, storage and production and shipping of components). Some other members, with limited or no experience in offshore wind, have joined the Platform to obtain market intelligence and experience from the other Ports. This allows them to understand whether they should enter the business and strategically plan their investments for extending or re-purposing their facilities.
How can Ports contribute to offshore wind cost reduction?
The Ports Platform commissioned a study in 2018 to assess the importance of Ports in supporting LCOE reduction for offshore wind. Under WindEurope’s central scenario to 2030 (Wind energy in Europe: scenarios for 2030, 2017), which foreseen a total of 70 GW of offshore wind (at an installation rate of 7 GW/year, including repowering), Ports will have to serve 10,000 wind turbines for O&M, install around 460 turbines/year, repower around 1 GW/year and decommission 600 turbines/year (750 MW/year):
Based on these figures, the Platform estimates that Ports can contribute to 5.3% of the total (direct and indirect) LCOE reduction. This corresponds to up to €3/MWh of energy produced, which is equivalent to what would be achieved by a project CAPEX reduction of €185,000/MW for a new wind farm. Thus, if a new wind farm of 30,000 MW total capacity is built from ports after investment has been made, subsequent savings will be equivalent to a project CAPEX reduction of €5.55 billion.
Without proactive investment of ports and vessel owners, and the involvement of ports and vessel operators in developing and realising the future vision, a significant LCOE reduction opportunity could be missed. To support offshore wind cost reduction, ports will need investments in the range of €0.5 – 1 billion to upgrade and adapt their facilities and machinery, representing 10-20% of the equivalent CAPEX saving. Investments will be a combination of upgrading, redesigning and adapting existing facilities, combined with new infrastructure.
What are the next steps for the Ports Platform?
For the 2020 work programme, the Ports Platform is looking into different work streams. Greening ports and related operations is a common priority. In addition, ports will continue to follow opportunities regarding storage, hydrogen and floating wind. In parallel, Ports are screening the possibility to jointly apply for regional and EU-funding programmes.
Ports platform members
For more information, contact [email protected]