A meeting on offshore wind energy held by the Baltic Sea bordering nations (excluding Russia) agreed to increase offshore wind capacity to 20GW by 2030 and to over 90GW by 2050.

Delegates from Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Sweden were in attendance at the meeting to discuss the acceleration of renewable energy from the Baltic Sea. The fast-tracking of offshore wind farms comes as part of the EU’s directive to wean itself off its energy reliance on supply from Russia.

Offshore wind turbines have led the way in scaling energy generation from larger units and have benefitted from using direct-drive permanent magnet synchronous generators to harness wind power efficiently. For the largest wind turbines of over 10MW over 1t of rare earths are contained in magnets for each turbine. This contrasts against the few kgs of rare earths in magnets that help optimise electric vehicles (EVs) to use smaller batteries. While wind turbine magnet demand will add large volumes of rare earth demand, the sector will be dwarfed by EV motors over the energy transition period. Nevertheless, the use of rare earth magnets in wind energy are more at risk of substitution than in EVs. The question remains if the better energy efficiency of rare earth magnets in wind turbines outweighs the supply risk and potential cost volatility.