By Jurjen Slump

The energy transition is now well underway. By 2050, virtually the whole of the energy supply will need to be renewable and carbon-neutral. That is a huge task. It is not only domestic users that need to go gas-free; SMEs, industries, road traffic, public transport and aviation will also have to shift towards a renewable source of energy. An electric vehicle or hydrogen-fuelled aircraft is not enough: the electricity or hydrogen needs to be generated in a sustainable, green way. With wind, solar, tidal or wave energy.

The source of a sustainable energy supply can be found offshore. A shortage of space on land and increasing demand for renewable energy call for the development of large-scale fixed and floating offshore energy systems in both shallow and deep waters. A view of the future is large offshore wind farms with floating solar panels between them producing electricity which is transmitted directly to shore or converted to hydrogen by factories on artificial islands which can be stored in situ in salt caverns or disused gas fields and later transported ashore via ships or former gas pipelines. All this while preserving the marine environment.

EU Strategy on Offshore Renewable Energy

This November, the European Commission proposed to increase Europe’s offshore wind capacity from its current level of 12 GW to 300 GW by 2050, complemented with 40 GW of ocean energy and other emerging technologies such as floating wind and solar. This ambitious growth will create new opportunities for industry, create green jobs across the continent, and strengthen the EU’s global leadership in offshore energy technologies.

To turn this ambition into reality by 2050, we will need to be capable of designing, building, maintaining and dismantling these kinds of systems in a circular way, with state-of-the-art re-use and recycling of materials. It is a huge task, but also the only way of meeting the climate targets without the production of these structures being at the expense of the environment and raw materials.

Shaping the future energy system

Research at TU Delft is characterized by an interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary way of thinking that transcends the disciplines of science, technology and design. This is nowhere more obvious than in the field of offshore renewables: Delft has all the expertise needed to shape the technology of this future energy system in its entirety.

This not only involves the integration of different subsidiary systems (production, transmission, conversion into hydrogen, storage and shipping) as a smart way of coping with fluctuating electricity production but also the preconditions for achieving this. Take, for example, the development of large-scale floating structures, integration within the energy network and circular design of the various components.

Integrated approach

This integrated, interdisciplinary approach ensures that the challenges in terms of the energy transition and circularity can be tackled together. By designing systems that ultimately go on to have a high-quality second life, we are not only enabling the large-scale production of renewable energy, but also contributing to the circular economy.

There are still countless technological and scientific challenges that need to be resolved, from the design of new, reusable composites for turbine blades to the underground storage of hydrogen. Researchers in almost all faculties are working on these. But they all agree on one thing: a sustainable offshore energy supply is technologically achievable by 2050.

The following visual provides a summary of the current research at TU Delft, illustrated through several innovation projects, in which new technology is being tested in partnership with the market. We also take a closer look at the increasing importance of green hydrogen and provide a sneak preview of the next best thing in the field of renewables: ocean energy.