More About 4 GW Dutch Tender: All Bids Revealed, Winners Now Have Four Weeks to Commit

The largest Dutch offshore wind tender is now completed with winning bidders announced. In March, when the application period closed, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) said that despite challenging market conditions, several proposals were submitted. Here, we’re bringing a few more details about the tendering procedure and who placed bids in the 4 GW tender.

As already reported, the winning bids in the IJmuiden Ver Alpha and Beta tender were filed by the Noordzeker consortium (SSE Renewables and AGP, asset manager for Dutch pension fund ABP) and the Zeevonk joint venture (Vattenfall and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners).

IJmuiden Ver Alpha, the 2 GW area secured by the Noordzeker consortium, is focused on making a positive contribution to nature, for which the developer proposed several nature-positive measures, including a bird protection solution and artificial reefs for marine wildlife.

The area secured by the Zeevonk joint venture, the 2 GW IJmuiden Ver Beta, will house an offshore wind farm which will be integrated with a large-scale floating solar plant offshore and a large-scale electrolyser on land.

The two developers are set to pay a total of EUR 21 million per year for 40 years and cover the environmental impact assessment costs.

In a press release following the announcement of the tender results, the Noordzeker consortium said it would refine its project ahead of the decision on whether to progress the development which is required to be made by July.

In response to offshoreWIND.biz‘s query, a spokesperson from the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy explained that the winning bidders have four weeks to provide a bank guarantee or a deposit of EUR 200 million. If they do so, they are then obliged to build the wind farms and make the other investments they detailed in their bids.

However, in case a developer does not provide the financial guarantee on time, the right to the permit expires and the permit then goes to the second most successful applicant.

On its website, RVO has now listed all the bids in the 4 GW tender, which shows there were two applications for each 2 GW area.

For IJmuiden Ver Alpha, besides the winning Noordzeker consortium that filed the proposal through a project company named Lely Alpha Offshore Wind Projco C.V., a proposal was also submitted by the Belgium-based offshore wind developer Parkwind.

The second bid for IJmuiden Ver Beta, secured by the Varrenfall-CIP joint venture, came from the Noordzeker consortium.

For each of the two areas, RVO states that both applications met the main tender requirements and that they were ranked according to how they scored on the comparative test criteria. 

Dutch renewable energy developer Eneco and Norwegian energy company Equinor also had plans to bid in the 4 GW IJmuiden Ver tender but, when the application period closed on 28 March, Eneco revealed that they were withdrawing from the tender.

In a white paper published in March, Eneco cited high interest rates, high material costs, and an uncertain electricity market as the reasons behind the decision to withdraw.

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