Dutch Gov’t Lowers 2040 Offshore Wind Target | ’50 GW Unrealistic and Unnecessary’

Dutch Minister for Climate and Green Growth, Sophie Hermans, presented the North Sea Wind Energy Infrastructure Plan (WIN) on 16 July to Parliament and said that the 2040 offshore wind target of 50 GW will be lowered. The new plan and Climate and Energy Memorandum, expected to be released and signed in September, are planned to set the target at 30-40 GW. The Netherlands will still maintain its 21 GW offshore wind goal for the near term.

In a letter to Parliament, Minister Hermans said the 50 GW goal was ambitious and unrealistic, but also that this amount of offshore wind generation capacity was not necessary, based on the most recent insights into the expected demand for electricity in 2040.

“Furthermore, the hydrogen market is developing more slowly than expected. This also makes offshore hydrogen production less urgent. Therefore, it currently appears neither feasible nor necessary to have 50 GW of offshore wind energy production capacity by 2040, nor to build the necessary infrastructure”, Minister Hermans states in the letter.

The government found that a target of approximately 30 GW for 2040 was a robust and widely supported minimum scenario, while 40 GW is considered necessary in many of the future scenarios examined to meet the expected energy demand.

The Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap will specify the targeted installed capacity for 2040 and the years leading up to it after 2032.

According to the Ministry of Climate and Green Growth, from an infrastructure feasibility perspective, a maximum of 4 GW of electrical infrastructure can be developed per year, although this will likely not be possible every year due to supply chain constraints. An exception of 5 GW will be made in 2026 due to the Nederwiek IB wind farm, whose tendering was postponed, and the site will be offered for development together with Nederwiek II and Nederwiek III. 

The letter to Parliament also states that the government recognised that the current international market conditions for offshore wind energy are very challenging, with tenders in several countries, including the UK, Denmark, and Belgium, receiving no bids or being postponed due to limited market interest.

“On the one hand, the costs of constructing wind farms have risen, partly due to higher prices for materials and increased interest rates. On the other hand, the electrification of industries, among other things, is lagging behind previous expectations, leading to uncertainty about future demand for sustainable electricity. This complicates the timely conclusion of Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), which are necessary to make projects financially viable”, the letter reads.

As for the previously planned 50 GW of offshore wind in 2040, the Dutch government set the target back in 2022, when the 2050 goal was announced to be 70 GW.

After the government revealed plans to lower the 2040 ambitions, Dutch industry organisation NedZero said this also jeopardises the 70 GW target for 2050, and that this “step backward in ambition” could have far-reaching consequences for investment security, energy independence, and achieving national and European climate goals. 

NedZero also said the Netherlands is jeopardising its credibility at the European level, as the country has committed to 193 GW of joint offshore wind capacity by 2040 and 260 GW by 2050 through the North Seas Energy Cooperation and also signed the Ostend Declaration, which targets 300 GW by 2050.

“We certainly won’t achieve our climate goals this way. In any case, we will continue developing offshore wind energy exactly as planned until 2032“, said Jan Vos, chairman of NedZero.

“That’s important; many investments have already been made. After 2032, the government wants to develop 30-40 GW, not 50 GW. That remains a major challenge, and we as a sector will fully commit to it. The crucial thing now is to further develop the demand for sustainable energy; we must stop using oil and gas.“

The newly introduced WIN plan is a building block for the next phase of the Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap, after the current target of 21 GW has been realised, according to Minister Hermans.

The 21 GW of offshore wind capacity that the Netherlands plans to reach next was also set in 2022, when the government doubled the total planned capacity for offshore wind energy by 2030 by designating new development areas.

The near-term target was to be achieved by 2031, which was later pushed back to the end of 2032.

The previous target for offshore wind in the Netherlands, set in its Offshore Wind Energy Roadmap 2023, was exceeded before the end of 2023.

The country’s first offshore wind roadmap, created following the Dutch Energy Agreement signed more than ten years ago, set a goal of 4.5 GW of installed capacity by the end of 2023, which was overshot with 4.7 GW up and running in the North Sea in December 2023.

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