North Sea developers target 100 GW of HVDC-linked offshore wind across UK and European grids
A plan to deliver 100 GW of offshore wind via subsea cables tests Europe's appetite for cross-border infrastructure at a scale the sector has not yet attempted.
A group of offshore wind developers disclosed plans on Sunday (2026-09-13) to build a network of sea-based wind farms connected to multiple European countries via high-voltage direct current subsea cables, targeting 100 GW of combined capacity — enough, by the group's own estimate, to supply around 143 million homes.8
The proposal sits alongside a UK development pipeline that is already substantial. The Crown Estate's UK Offshore Wind Report, published in May 2026, counted 93 GW of fixed and floating offshore wind capacity in the UK either in planning or with identified future potential. That number shows the sector's theoretical reach. It also shows how much remains unbuilt.8
The HVDC interconnection element is the harder engineering and financing proposition. Existing bilateral cable links between Britain and its neighbours took years from sanction to operation. National Grid's Viking Link to Denmark, for instance, required sustained political commitment across two regulatory regimes to reach completion and carries a fraction of the capacity the new proposal envisions. A 100 GW multinational mesh has no precedent in European energy infrastructure.7,1
What delivery looks like in the offshore sector right now is better illustrated by completed projects. Prysmian Group finished cable installation for RWE's 1.4 GW Sofia offshore wind farm at Dogger Bank in the North Sea, a 100-turbine project rated to supply around 1.2 million UK homes.3 That 1.4 GW represents roughly 1.4 percent of the 100 GW target — and construction cadence at current rates would need to accelerate sharply, and sustain that acceleration for many years, to close that gap.8
Grid costs present a separate constraint on UK offshore ambitions even before the new plan is factored in. Industry figures warned that connecting offshore wind farms in the Celtic Sea alone would require an additional £15 billion in network upgrades, according to the National Energy System Operator's Beyond 2030 report released in July 2026 (2026-07-01). HVDC export cables resolve connectivity at the point of generation; they do not eliminate onshore reinforcement costs at receiving grids.5
Germany is developing offshore capacity on a parallel, if narrower, trajectory. Skyborn Renewables and Amazon signed a 600 MW power purchase agreement for the Gennaker offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea, reported in June 2026 (2026-06-19) as the largest single PPA signed in Germany to date.4 That transaction relied on bilateral corporate offtake rather than multinational cable infrastructure, a model that has proven more straightforward to finance than anything resembling the 100 GW concept.
Uniper is building toward 8 GW of ready-to-build renewable capacity by 2030, backed by approximately 8 billion euros of total transformation investment through the early 2030s. The utility currently has around 568 MW of solar and onshore wind projects under construction across the UK, Germany, Poland and Hungary.2 That pace is representative of what even well-capitalised incumbents can actually deliver within a decade.
The commercial case for offshore wind is strengthening. Asian Power reported the global offshore wind market was valued at $57.51 billion in 2026, with a projected rise to $208.33 billion by 2035, driven by larger turbines and expanding supply chains.6 UK offshore wind displaced an estimated 20.8 million tonnes of CO2 in 2025, sustaining political momentum behind the sector's expansion.8
Prysmian's separate £2 billion ($2.7 billion) contract to supply cable for the Eastern Green Link 4 subsea electricity project confirms that manufacturers and lenders will commit to multi-billion-pound infrastructure at the individual project level.3 But securing that commitment simultaneously across multiple sovereign governments, grid operators and regulatory bodies is the step this 100 GW plan has not yet taken. Permitting timelines and offtake structures across the targeted countries will give the first concrete signal of whether the proposal advances from announced capacity toward contracted projects.1