From the Financial Times:
Last month two undersea cables and one pipeline in the Baltic Sea were damaged in what investigators believe were deliberate acts of sabotage. These are just the most recent examples of mysterious damage to sea-based infrastructure. But new risks are also emerging: Chinese companies are suppliers of wind turbines — whose offshore farms are connected to land by cables on the seabed — and will be crucial for the west’s energy transition. To ensure the west doesn’t become dependent on Beijing for our wind technology in the way it has historically relied on Russia for gas, we need to boost domestic manufacturing.
Since the cable sabotage took place, during the course of a few hours between October 7 and 8, Estonian, Finnish and Swedish authorities have investigated the damage sustained within their exclusive economic zones. A suspect has already emerged: the Hong Kong-flagged, Chinese-owned boxship NewNew Polar Bear, which was being escorted by a Russian-flagged vessel. This comes after two undersea cables connecting the Matsu Islands with Taiwan were severed by merchant ships earlier this year, and the mysterious explosions in the Nord Stream pipelines last September. These incidents are alarming because the west is so dependent on this maritime infrastructure: pipelines to deliver our oil and gas supplies, undersea cables carrying the data for our modern digital economies, and offshore wind to power the energy transition.
Wind power currently accounts for 17 per cent of Europe’s electricity, and this figure is set to increase: in an effort to counter the effects of climate change, the EU, Norway and the UK plan to double their offshore wind energy capacity to 400 gigawatts by 2050. That will mean a rapid increase in construction, especially for offshore wind, which has only reached 16GW so far. The EU recently held a security exercise focusing on wind farms in the North Sea, and operators have begun sharing data from sensors and cameras with their respective ministries of defence in an effort to discourage sabotage.
The offshore installations themselves face both sabotage threats and the ever-present risk of cyber intrusion. Wind farms face a further, troubling vulnerability: dependence on China in their supply chains. Chinese-made wind turbines cost less than half the average price of those manufactured elsewhere — and while the number of European countries that are using them is still low, Chinese companies have declared their interest in participating in European wind energy auctions and in opening up production facilities on the continent.
