The North Sea has the potential to play a pivotal role in the energy transition of the surrounding countries, but it is also a busy area with important ecological, societal and economic functions to a wide range of stakeholders. The support or resistance of these stakeholders can be an important stimulus or barrier to offshore system integration.

As part of the NSE Program Work Package 2, MSG Sustainable Strategies has performed an extensive analysis of Dutch stakeholders’ views, concerns, needs and potential benefits related to North Sea system integration and specific integration options, such as reuse, CCS and hydrogen in particular. The report on this stakeholder analysis was published mid-October.
 
Based on sessions with NSE partners, interviews with stakeholders and desk research, this study reports on North Sea stakeholders in three parts.

Overall, the stakeholder views show common ground regarding the need for large-scale offshore wind, the need to reduce spatial pressure and the importance of common knowledge base.
 
Disputed topics are the need for national energy self-sufficiency, the speed of the transition from fossil fuels to renewables, the importance of (especially blue) hydrogen, the societal value of reuse of existing infrastructure and the relevance of CCS to system integration.
 
Engaging the relevant stakeholders will be key to unlocking the energy potential of the North Sea. The researchers recommend first to incorporate the knowledge needs that were expressed by the stakeholders into current and future research programmes. Secondly, they recommend that a vision-based roadmap for energy system integration – which is part of WP7 - should seek to incorporate the different perspectives on North Sea energy.
Download the full report

On 6 December NSE organizes a webinar about the key learnings of the study of stakeholder perspectives on offshore system integration in the North Sea. Register here!