Risks, strategies, and benefits of offshore energy hubs: A literature-based survey

Offshore Energy Hubs, also called Energy Islands, are intensively discussed to become a key element in the process of decarbonising the energy sector. The vision of implementing Offshore Energy Hubs in the context of exploiting offshore wind potentials in Northern Europe is led by industry and has quickly taken up a spot in the political discussion on national and European level. This research develops a survey scheme inspired by multi-criteria analysis to assess the main drivers in the development of Offshore Energy Hubs. We propose a definition, present the scheme, and conduct a survey based on the scheme for the case of the North Sea offshore energy infrastructure. Applying the suggested survey method to the context of the North Sea, we identify five trade-offs to be considered. The significance of the environmental benefits is strongly linked to the choice of materials and designs; changes to current assumptions may flip the system’s benefits and turn the project into a series of sunk investments; coordinated and integrated planning is key to boosting the project’s efficiency; offshore energy infrastructure presents a technological solution to energy system decarbonisation and needs to touch base with societal desires and behavioural solutions; and Offshore Energy Hubs are currently standalone solutions with no competitors, which makes their benefits impossible to compare.