Netherlands Consulting Developers on 2026 Offshore Wind Tender

January 30, 2025, by Adrijana Buljan

The Dutch Ministry of Climate and Green Growth is currently exploring which procedure to choose for the permitting of the Nederwiek II and Nederwiek III offshore wind sites that are planned to be put out to tender in 2026. The Ministry has now opened a market consultation period for wind farm developers to provide feedback by 28 February.

The 2026 offshore wind tender in the Netherlands will be held for three sites, Nederwiek IB, Nederwiek II and Nederwiek III. The government has added Nederwiek IB to next year’s procedure as it could not be part of the upcoming round. The government has already decided to award the permit for Nederwiek IB through a tender based on a comparative test with a financial bid so the market consultation is only regarding the two other sites.

Dutch Gov’t to Launch Next Offshore Wind Tender in September 2025, Postpones Procedure for One Site

Authorities

The Ministry of Climate and Green Growth and the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) are looking into four possible tendering procedures for awarding offshore wind development rights for Nederwiek II and III (Nederwiek Noord): subsidy-based, comparative test with financial bid, comparative test without financial bid, and auction.

In the subsidy-based competition, the bid with the lowest subsidy intensity (CO2 impact per euro of subsidy) would receive the permit.

The two procedures based on a comparative test involve an independent committee assessing the permit applications based on qualitative criteria, with points allocated per criterion. In the comparative test with a financial bid, developers can make a financial offer for which they also earn points, while the other comparative test procedure does not require financial bidding.

The auction procedure would award the permit to whoever makes the highest financial bid.

The Ministry and RVO expect to choose the procedure for Nederwiek II and III in the second quarter of this year and to award permits in the first quarter of 2027 after the tender next year.

The commissioning of the Nederwiek III offshore wind farm is planned in late 2031 and Nederwiek II is planned to come online in early 2032.