Russia<\/a> has a fleet of vessels that are disguised as fishing trawlers and research boats that are carrying out underwater surveillance and mapping key sites for possible sabotage.<\/p>\nWhy offshore wind farms are \u2018attractive for sabotage\u2019<\/p>\n
James Bore, a chartered security professional, tells Euronews Green that at a high level, any form of offshore energy production with multiple connections \u201cintroduces new dependencies\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cRealistically, it’s deciding where the risk sits rather than a blunt increase in vulnerability,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n
\u201cAny large-scale energy production infrastructure is going to open up new attack vectors, but this is a shift from a model where fuel supply chains and geopolitics are key to one where physical infrastructure, data, and control systems are more important.\u201d<\/p>\n
The security expert warns that physical disruption of the infrastructure, such as attacks on generation facilities, offshore substations and undersea cables, is one of the key risks for this kind of development.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re difficult to monitor continuously, and so are attractive for sabotage by highly capable, motivated hostile actors,\u201d Bore says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, damaging them is not trivial, and is a very overt action, while repairs and recovery are tried and tested. Any damage is typically localised, and a well-designed system will have sufficient redundancy to limit impacts of any single incident.\u201d<\/p>\n
As green energy developments become increasingly digitised, there is also a cyber-physical risk. <\/p>\n
\u201cCompromise here is more plausible than dramatic physical attacks, but the realistic outcomes are disruption or degradation rather than catastrophic failure,\u201d argues Bore. <\/p>\n
\u201cThese risks are well understood from other critical sectors and are manageable if addressed at the design stage rather than retrofitted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Is Europe\u2019s underwater surveillance strong enough?<\/p>\n
European defence-tech company EUROATLAS, which is developing autonomous underwater vehicles designed to secure and maintain critical subsea infrastructure, argues that North Sea nations are building a continent-scale underwater power system without investing in a \u201ccorresponding underwater security architecture\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cPersistent autonomous underwater surveillance is becoming as essential to energy security as radar is to airspace,\u201d says Verineia Codrean of EUROATLAS.<\/p>\n
While underwater surveillance is becoming more important, Bore argues that it is only one part of a much broader approach to resilience.<\/p>\n
\u201cRedundancy, rapid repair capability, segmented grids, and international coordination tend to do far more for energy security than any single technology,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
\u2018Energy security is national security\u2019<\/p>\n
The UK\u2019s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) says the UK and EU allies have \u201cdoubled down\u201d on clean power to help protect their people and strengthen national security. <\/p>\n
\u201cEnergy security is national security, \u201c a DESNZ spokesperson tells Euronews Green. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis historic agreement will see us work with European allies to unlock the world\u2019s largest clean energy reservoir. The clean energy security pact includes dedicated measures to strengthen resilience against threats and protect offshore energy assets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jane Cooper of RenewableUK, which represents almost 500 companies in the renewable energy industry, adds: \u201cWe are strengthening our security collaboration to ensure the North Sea\u2019s critical energy infrastructure is protected from harm, so that we can continue to generate the huge quantities of clean power needed by the UK and our neighbours reliably at all times.\u201d<\/p>\n
How will The Hamburg Declaration step up security?<\/p>\n
The Hamburg Declaration acknowledges increasing geopolitical tensions, stating that the protection and resilience of maritime energy infrastructure \u201cdemands close coordination and a common strategic approach to counter a variety of threats such as physical sabotage, cyber attacks, or other hybrid attacks\u201d. <\/p>\n
This will be done by \u201cenhanced coordination\u201d of all military, civil and private security services, enhanced cyber defence, regular security exercises and \u201cacting against substandard ships\u201d to avoid possible threats.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe call on our Energy Ministers and Ministers responsible for defence, resilience and preparedness or other related fields to enhance cooperation related to the resilience and physical as well as cyber defence of our offshore energy infrastructure in the North Seas,\u201d the declaration reads.<\/p>\n
While green energy infrastructure can be targeted, Bore argues it isn\u2019t \u201cuniquely fragile\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn many ways, a diversified, interconnected renewables system is more resilient than a fossil-fuel heavy one \u2013 provided security is treated as a core engineering and governance concern, not an afterthought,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ambitious plans to transform the North Sea into the world\u2019s \u201clargest green energy reservoir\u201d have sparked concern among…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[43152,1397,591,12571,10721,12636,90,56,54,55,67842],"class_list":{"0":"post-423186","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-cyber-security","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-green-energy","12":"tag-national-security","13":"tag-renewable-energy","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom","18":"tag-wind-turbine"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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