Oliver Conway

The agreement, which includes the UK, France, Germany and Norway, aims to generate electricity for millions of homes via a network of offshore wind farms in the North Sea.

The EU's Energy Commissioner is Dan Juergensen.

That enthusiasm for clean energy is in stark contrast to the attitude of the US President, who's been vocal in his criticism of wind power.

But Jess Rolston from the UK's Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit says the new agreement sends a clear message that the future of the North Sea is green.

So how significant is this deal?

Justin Rowlatt is our climate editor.

The signing was at a future of the North Sea summit in the German city of Hamburg and 10 energy ministers from European countries agreed to deliver by 2050 300 gigawatts of power.

When you think that about 14 gigawatts of power.

is enough to power 10 million European homes.

You realise this is an absolutely extraordinary commitment to renewable power.

The initial agreement was actually signed three years ago.

This declaration will put the kind of flesh on the bones.

And really interestingly, one of the initiatives that they want to introduce is they want the wind farms to be connected to multiple countries so that the electricity can be directed to whichever country needs it most.

And they say this will smooth peaks in demand and also should reduce prices across

the continent.

But there's been some discomfort within Europe about the ability to sell electricity to multiple countries.

There was an issue in Norway where there was a feeling that power generated in Norway, which could be used in Norway, was being sold off to other countries where higher prices could be achieved and therefore pushing up prices in Norway.

And in fact, they were going to put another interconnector between Norway and Scotland

and the Norwegian government decided not to go ahead with it.

So these things can be controversial, but obviously the more power you've got, the more flexibility to sell it overall across the continent should result in lower prices.