The article describes ten TSOs’ joint planning of a promising set of offshore hybrid infrastructure projects in the Northern Seas. The planning builds on and complements existing Pan-European and national planning, testing a variety of potential options.

After the ENTSO-E’s European Offshore Network Development Plan (ONDP) has been published in January 2024, giving insights related to the amount of assets to be installed offshore and the related costs, it became clearer that financing of offshore development is becoming more and more difficult. There are several reasons, such as increasing asset prices due to an overheated market with suppliers facing a long queue of customers; more hours of zero prices due to electrification being slower than necessary; less incentives for offshore RES developers to bid on tenders, thus also the generation side facing unexpected challenges. Beyond this, a lack of workforce on all levels does not make the joint regional task easier.

The Draghi report from September 2024 stated that regional planning needs to be strengthened, as European regions differ and a ‘one-fits-all solution’ is deemed unrealistic to be identified in the near future. Regional synergies are expected to help releasing at least some of the above challenges and contribute to an acceleration of implementation projects, thus bringing European decarbonization a step further.

In this context, ten European TSOs for electricity have jointly started an investigation of both, known offshore infrastructure projects and potential new ideas with the target of finding a viable and economically efficient way forward for the 2040 time-horizon.

The contribution will describe what has been investigated and what has been achieved. In addition, some insights into potential cost-sharing methodologies will be discussed.