Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment Darragh O’Brien is due to attend a meeting in Germany focused on improving cooperation in offshore wind and hydrogen infrastructure across the North Sea region.
The North Sea Summit will be attended by leaders and energy ministers from ten Western and northern European countries in Hamburg.
The collective goal that has been set by the representatives at the third edition of the gathering is turning the North Sea region into Europe’s “green power plant”.
As host of the third edition of the format, Germany invited leaders and energy ministers from Ireland, the UK, Denmark, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway and Iceland to take part in talks.
Speaking ahead of the summit, Mr O’Brien said: “As a small, windy island at the edge of Europe, the offshore energy potential of Ireland is huge.
“Increasing our cross-border electricity interconnection will enhance European energy security, increase our economic competitiveness and critically reduce consumer prices.”
Mr O’Brien will take part in a ministerial meeting on financing offshore infrastructure, participate in a stakeholder panel on the business case for developing offshore wind farms and chair a roundtable discussion on offshore renewable hydrogen.
More than 100 company representatives will also take part in the summit.
The first North Sea Summit was held in Denmark in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine as European governments looked to reduce their dependence on fossil fuel imports, particularly from Russia, and improve energy security within their own markets.
A second summit was held in 2023 in Belgium.
Participating countries have set a collective goal of installing up to 300GW of offshore wind capacity in the North Sea region by 2050.
To put that into context, one gigawatt generated by a power plant can power a medium-sized European city of approximately 500,000 residents, according to energy experts.
Ireland’s electrical grid is due to be connected to the European Union’s internal energy market for the first time in 2028 via the Celtic Interconnector, an underwater cable linking Irish and French grids.
The Government has set a target of generating 5GW of capacity in offshore wind energy by 2030.
It said it is actively exploring further interconnection with other European partners.
Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who is hosting the summit, has previously talked about developing the North Sea into “the largest reservoir of clean energy in the world”.
NATO representatives have also been invited to the talks, reflecting a growing conversation in European capitals over the need to protect the continent’s critical energy infrastructure against hybrid threats and sabotage.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin was scheduled to attend the summit but did not travel in order to attend the funeral in Co Cork of former Fianna Fáil MEP Brian Crowley, who died last Friday.
UK Prime Minster Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron will also not attend the Hamburg summit, a spokesperson for the German federal government confirmed at the weekend.
