Brussels (Platts)--14Sep2009/626 am EDT/1026 GMT

European power transmission system operators need to invest up to Eur30 billion ($44 billion) in offshore grids and interconnectors by 2020 to bring 40 GW of offshore wind online, the European Wind Energy Association said in a report presented Monday.

"A Eur20 billion to Eur30 billion investment...is needed by 2020 to meet [EWEA's] 40 GW offshore target," EWEA's CEO Christian Kjaer told reporters in Brussels on Friday. "But consumers would get lower prices from the better working market."

The report, Oceans of Opportunity, shows that more than 100 GW of offshore wind projects are being planned in European waters, said Kjaer.

"We project Eur57 billion of investment in offshore wind projects between 2011 and 2020, compared with Eur131 billion in onshore wind," Kjaer said.

The 100 GW and rising figure is the result of a summer 2009 survey of EWEA members' plans. "We are forecasting reaching 100 GW of installed offshore wind by 2027, spread over 19 EU countries," said Kjaer.

EWEA's target of 40 GW installed offshore wind by 2020 would avoid 85 million mt of CO2 emissions and produce 148 TWh/year, the report said.

But EWEA is calling for unbundled TSOs to pay the connection costs needed to bring offshore wind power to the consumer. "There should be incentives for TSOs to do it, such as regulated tariffs," said Kjaer.

EWEA proposes specific new interconnectors needed by 2020 in its report, including new 600 MW links between Sweden and Poland and Sweden and Germany, and a new 550 MW link between Denmark and Germany.

It also proposes a new 1 GW link between the UK and Belgium, and 1 GW links between the UK, Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

Kjaer said the grid plan is EWEA's input into the 10-year EU grid development plan that the new European power TSO body, Entso-e, has to prepare under the terms of the EU's third energy package which established it.

The EU's third energy package aims to complete the EU's internal power and gas markets and create seamless EU power and gas grids. --Siobhan Hall, siobhan_hall@platts.com