A year ago nobody would have bet 1 euro on the Pharaonic project

Sprinkle with the North Sea of an offshore wind farm belt on the territorial waters of seven countries. A year ago, nobody would have bet 1 euro on the Pharaonic project. Since then, the Dutch environmental association Natuur in the workplace and the cabinet Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), led by the famous architect Rem Koolhas, have managed to attract the attention of the European Commission.

Called Zeekracht ("sea power"), their project includes the construction of a ring formed of several parks shared between the Norway, the Denmark, the Germany, the Netherlands, the Belgium, the France and England. Once completed, by 2050, this network of community infrastructure could produce enough power to meet the needs of Europe and contribute to energy independence: 13.400 terawatt hours, or 15 better than the annual production of the Persian Gulf.

Marine reserve

And this is not all: in the centre of the ring, the designers also provide create largest marine nature reserve. It will protect one of the richest ocean ecosystems, with more than 170 species of fish, some of which are victims of industrial fishing such as cod, mackerel, herring or monkfish.

In June 2009 at the Summit of power in Bucharest, the presentation than actually Reinier de Graaf, a partner of the firm OMA, all particularly interested the European Commissioner for energy, Andris Piebalgs, present in the Chamber. The idea of an energy cooperation at European level echoes long in Brussels. Use the natural potential of the North Sea for the purposes of political and industrial integration, windy and rich senior Fund, is a program that takes the good wind. Last December, the architecture firm therefore found himself associated with an even more ambitious exercise: participate in the development of the energy roadmap of Europe, which must establish the technical necessary options to the almost complete decarbonisation of the electricity generation of twenty-seven.

Led by the European Climate Foundation (ECF), dozens of experts from the Imperial College in London, the German Kema network specialist, study group McKinsey, political analyst E3G, the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands and the search for AMO studio, working since on these scenarios of independence.

In the futuristic "Roadmap 2050" report, published mid-April, the Agency OMA considers the potential of renewable energy on 80 of the production by 2050. A condition, however, to exploit the resources specific to each region in a systematic manner: geothermal energy in Central Europe, hydropower in the mountains, Eastern agricultural biomass, solar energy in the South, tidal on the wind and West Coast in the North Sea. "The new map of energy Europe that we are proposing is an invisible revolution that will only change the strength of his movement for propulsion," says Reinier de Graaf.

Resource sharing

To function, program must link all sources of energy to create a supportive network for the sharing of resources. The challenge is not only technical: "to achieve this goal, it will implement devices for improving energy efficiency, build, expand and coordinate smart electrical networks, integrate and reform market operations of energy between Member States and take finally firm commitments to phase out high-carbon assets", list Laura Bairdinitiator of the project "roadmap" 2050.

Apart from the existing hydroelectric facilities, almost all of the necessary infrastructure must be built. "The half of European electrical production capacities to be renewed until 2022, the decision of décarboner European production will play in the next few years", notes one expert. According to the projections of the road map, related expenditures will accordingly double over the next fifteen years and overall energy costs will start to decline until 2020 provided that most of the sites are quickly launched.

Offshore wind projects are rather well placed in this context and in a year, which could legitimately go for a green fad has become a political initiative to follow. The European Association of wind energy (Ewea) has calculated that the amount of wind capacity planned by all of the projects in the North Sea already amounts to 100 gigawatts. If all these projects occur, they will cover a tenth of the needs of electricity in Europe.

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