Offshore Wind Common Goal in Netherlands as 75 Pct of Electricity in 2032 Expected to Come from Wind Farms in Dutch North Sea

In 2032, 75 per cent of all electricity produced in the Netherlands will come from offshore wind as the country will continue powering ahead with permitting and deploying wind farms in its North Sea waters, even with the change of cabinet. This is according to Jan Vos, Chairman of NedZero, who discussed the Dutch offshore wind outlook on 27 November 2024 at Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC) in Amsterdam.

“The story in the Netherlands is a little bit boring because the outlook here is still great. We do have a new cabinet, however, the new cabinet made a clear statement that offshore wind is going to be developed as it was before”, said Jan Vos.

Currently, the Netherlands has 4.5 GW of offshore wind capacity in operation and plans to have a total of 21 GW by 2032. While the country’s new cabinet has a different position on the political spectrum than the previous one, the offshore wind roadmap progressed by the previous government continues to be one of the main energy goals.

“Offshore wind is the cheapest source of electricity and it is the best way for our country to generate power”, Vos said. “So this cabinet, which is way more on the right than any cabinet we’ve had in the Netherlands, is on track for offshore wind as any other government has been before and they’re fully implementing the roadmap.”

One of the drivers for the commitment to offshore wind is also the fact the Netherlands had around 56 per cent of its electricity produced by clean sources in 2024, with renewable energy taking over fossil energy production.

“If you plug your laptop or your phone into the socket, 56 per cent of that electricity is from solar and wind energy, and the majority of that is now from wind energy alone. This used to be very different only ten years ago when it was just a few percentage points. So renewable energy took off fascinatingly and, especially in offshore wind, we will continue to grow rapidly”, Vos said.

“In 2032, when you plug in your laptop or your phone, 75 per cent of all that electricity will be produced by offshore wind alone. That is gigantic! There is no precedent in recent history for one production source of electricity being so dominant in the energy mix.”

Under its offshore wind roadmap, the Netherlands not only plans the 21 GW of offshore wind in 2032 but it also outlines the path towards adding further capacity after that, with an ultimate goal of reaching a total of 72 GW of offshore wind capacity in the North Sea.

“This is because we don’t only need to decarbonise our electricity system, we also need to decarbonise the energy system and this means producing hydrogen and providing clean power for the electrification of the industry. These are things that will come into play after 2032”, said Jan Vos.

The immediate goal currently is the target for 2032 and Vos expressed his certainty of the Netherlands achieving it saying the success the country has seen so far was largely due to good cooperation between the government, businesses, NGOs, and other sectors like oil and gas and fishing.

The main issue at the moment is the business case for offshore wind developers as prices have gone up, which makes it hard to bid, according to Vos. In the latest offshore wind tenders in the Netherlands, there were only three bidders and it used to be seven, eight or ten bidders.

“You’re not going to bid and put the money in a project that is not going to deliver any returns, both at the government side and the investor side, if you don’t have a good business case. And if you have only three bidders, you seriously need to take action. So the industry’s message to the government currently is to take action on this matter”, Vos said.

Both CapEx and OpEx are higher due to the inflation and even though the inflation is now lower than it was, it continues to affect the industry and hamper the steady growth of wind energy, according to Vos.

Among other pressing issues the industry is currently facing is grid congestion and an outdated grid, meaning that, even when the offshore transmission system operator (TSO) TenneT brings the electricity generated by offshore wind farms to land, the national grid on land is struggling to bring the power all the way through the Netherlands, Jan Vos said.

The industry is working with grid operators in the Netherlands to bring congestion down on the demand side, but also on the supply side, Vos said and added that there is some competition in the energy space when it comes to infrastructure and this is making things “very complicated”. He noted that several countries are “doing a better job” in this regard because they are less regulated and thus tend to move faster and that they also use more IT/ICT technology to manage the electricity on the grid.

Vos further highlighted the challenges in the supply chain as also being some of the key concerns, especially in terms of vessel capacities.  

“The supply chain did not invest enough because they have been hit by COVID-19 and the inflation that they also saw in their business case. A lot of shipbuilding companies and installation companies had a tough time and they did not invest as much as they should have because they were being cautious and did not invest that much to avoid risk. This is bad for the government goals for all European countries because they cannot make their goals since there is just not enough installation capacity”, Vos said.

Still, Vos voiced optimism for the offshore wind industry and the renewable energy sector in general as the clean energy goals are still within reach with a few actions being taken to clear the path for faster buildout.

“Costs are going down in our industry in general. Prices of solar, battery systems and wind energy have been going down for a long time. Although we currently see a slight uptake, if you look at it historically, it is still only a minor uptake. So we will see costs going down way more, which means that we will be able to compete better with other sources of energy as our LCOE will be more competitive, and this means much faster growth in any market economy”, said Jan Vos.

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