Norway will form a Green Alliance “strategic partnership” with the European Union to increase co-operation in offshore wind, carbon capture and storage (CCS), and critical raw materials to help ensure the bloc’s energy security.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store signed the agreement Monday to accelerate the clean-energy transition in which offshore wind will be a key element “powering” the EU’s clean-tech drive.
Store has pledged Norway will bring 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity online by 2040.
“The turbines in the North Sea will help power Europe’s clean-tech industry and provide secure and affordable energy to meet Europe’s needs,” Von der Leyen said.
She also highlighted the co-operation on critical raw materials, “the very materials we need to build these turbines”.
“Last year we [Norway and the EU] announced a strategic partnership focusing on critical raw materials and the batteries value chain. This work is ongoing, and I hope we will finalise it soon,” she said.
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Norway keen on carbon capture
During the signing ceremony, Store expressed his desire to strengthen co-operation on CCS.
“On sustainable raw materials and batteries we are already moving forward. But here we are moving to a very important chapter: carbon capture and storage,” he said.
“We did not come that far a year ago. We have now come much further.”
Norway became the EU’s biggest gas supplier last year, after EU member nations started looking to replace Russian gas supplies following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“It is in times of need that you get to know your true friends, and Norway showed in an exemplary manner that we can rely on each other,” Von der Leyen said, adding that the increased gas supplies from Norway prevented blackouts in EU nations.
Store also announced he had bigger plans for importing carbon to store offshore. He said he will meet his Belgian counterpart at the Second North Sea Summit later Monday to discuss how “Belgium is planning to export CO2 by pipeline, which may end up in the seabed of the North Sea”.
Besides Norway, seven countries — including France, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK — will attend the summit in Ostend, Belgium, to commit to build wind farms rapidly and work on carbon capture and renewable hydrogen projects to turn the North Sea into a green power engine, Reuters reported.