Belgian Ocean Energy Assessment BOREAS: final report

The new Climate Action – Energy for a Changing World of the European Commission proposed several measures to fight climate change and promote renewable energy. One of those measures includes legally enforceable targets to increase the share of renewable in the energy mix of each Member State. The target of the renewable share in the European Union is set to 20% by the year 2020, and the European Commission has set individual targets for every Member State. In the case of Belgium, the target is set to 13%, whereas the renewable share in 2008 was only 3.3 % (Eurostat, 2010). Basically, this is the consequence of the (post)-Kyoto-agreements. But apart from this, consumption of energy is increasing year by year whilst it is proving increasingly difficult to find and extract sufficient fossil fuels to cover the annual increase in consumption. Contributions to the share of renewables are required from various sources, such as biomass, wind, hydropower and solar energy. In particular, offshore wind has boosted during recent years.