IRENA projections show that global offshore wind and ocean energy installed capacity will reach 228 GW and 10 GW respectively by 2030.

Offshore renewables, including offshore wind, wave, tidal, ocean thermal and floating solar PV, will see major capacity growth over the next decade and play a key role in global energy transition.

In this context, representatives from 40 countries gathered to identify areas for cooperation and to agree on specific steps to accelerate development and ensure the rapid uptake of these promising technologies.

“Offshore renewables have the potential to meet more than four times the global energy demand of today, foster a blue economy, and bring socio-economic benefits to some of the most vulnerable areas to climate change such as small island territories and coastal areas.”

Francesco La Camera, IRENA director-general.

The Collaborative Framework on Ocean Energy / Offshore Renewables, during which the Member States and the States in Accession contributed input on the thematic scope of the Collaborative Framework, agreed to include relevant stakeholders in future meetings.

In response, this second meeting of the Collaborative Framework, chaired by H.E. Ambassador ‘Akau’ola, Tonga’s Permanent Representative to IRENA, included participation, insights and support from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) and Ocean Energy Europe (OEE).

Currently, 90 percent of the global installed offshore wind capacity is being commissioned and operated in the North Sea and the nearby Atlantic Ocean.

Ben Backwell, CEO of GWEC, attributed the rapid uptake of offshore wind in Europe to regional collaboration on interconnection, marine spatial planning (MSP) and coupling in the North Sea market.

Representing the ocean energy energy sector in the Collaborative Framework, Rémi Gruet, CEO of OEE, indicated that ocean energy would become a game changer, predicting that the sector could generate more than 1.2 million jobs worldwide by 2050.

Gruet also underscored the predictability of ocean energy, which complements the intermittent renewable energy sources, as a compelling argument to make wave and tidal energy technologies important additions to power systems that would be dominated by solar PV and wind.