Abstract

Offshore grids can have an important role in the transition of the energy system to sustainability. Although they require extensive infrastructure investments, they open up for the exploitation of a vast amount of additional resources and may be important to provide for part of the increasing electricity demand driven by sector coupling between the electricity, heat, and transport sectors. We show that the level of such sector coupling is decisive for the development of offshore grids. Performing energy system optimization in a model application of the Northern-central European energy system and the North Sea offshore grid towards 2050, we find that without sector coupling no offshore grid may develop, and that the higher the level of sector coupling, the higher the value of offshore grids. The electrification of the transport sector favors offshore grid development more than the electrification of the heat sector. Offshore grid infrastructure development can therefore not be discussed as a separate political topic, but seen in connection to sector coupling.