Offshore Wind Farms in the Netherlands

Last June, the Dutch government was obliged by court to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gasses with 25 per cent by 2020 compared to 1990. Climate organisation Urgenda has instituted legal proceedings against the Dutch government. This is a unique case, as nowhere else in the world has a government been told by court to do more to prevent climate change. This news underlines the importance of the shift towards more sustainable energy sources, such as wind energy. Maritime Holland spoke to Siemens, (service) supplier of many offshore wind turbines who is committed to making this sustainable energy source the energy of the future.

Offshore wind is of great importance, especially for the Netherlands. The Dutch have optimal offshore characteristics in this field, like a relatively shallow North Sea that is quite windy. Furthermore, the Netherlands has the maritime and offshore expertise needed for the job as well as excellent harbours required to transport enormous turbine parts. “The advantage of offshore wind far at sea over onshore wind farms is that the wind turbines cannot be seen or heard from the coastline, the turbine blades do not produce distracting shadows, the turbines can be built much larger and they do catch far more wind”, explains operations manager at Siemens Netherlands, Carlo Luijendijk.

Protocol and agreement

At the moment, our energy supply mostly depends on coal, oil and gas. These so-called fossil fuels are combusted in power plants to generate energy. However, these thermal power plants produce byproducts such as heat and carbon dioxide among other greenhouse gases. These emissions have to be reduced in the near future to prevent the world from further consequences of global warming.

The Dutch court agrees, with the possibility to be followed by courts of other countries. However, governments have joined forces to fight the environmental challenge. International goals regarding the reduction of emissions are stated in international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. This protocol entered into force in 2005 and the first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012. Hereafter, a second commitment period was agreed by the involved parties which started in 2013 and will end in 2030. The involved parties committed to reduce GHG emissions by at least 18 per cent in 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

The development of the Dutch offshore wind industry is stated in the National Energy Agreement of 2013, which focuses on clean energy; creating more jobs while having a positive effect on consumers’ energy bills. Part of this agreement is the roadmap wind energy at sea, that describes how the wind energy capacity of 1,000 MW will be increased to almost 4,500 in 2023. This will be sufficient to supply energy to five million households.

Wind farms in the Netherlands

At the moment, two offshore wind farms are operating in the Netherlands. Almost ten years ago, the construction of the first Dutch offshore wind farm – Egmond aan Zee – commenced. The second Dutch operating offshore wind farm was the Princess Amalia Wind Farm and is located nearby IJmuiden. Currently, three more wind farms are being constructed. Wind farm Luchterduinen will be located 23 kilometres off the coast between Noordwijk and Zandvoort, wind farm Westermeerwind will be built in the IJsselmeer, along the dikes of the Noordoostpolder. Wind farm Gemini will be one of the largest wind farms worldwide and will be located 85 kilometres north of Groningen’s coast.

Siemens

Siemens is closely involved in the offshore wind industry by supplying the 150 wind turbines including its maintenance for the upcoming 15 years for the offshore wind farm Gemini while investing in this project at the same time.

Carlo Luijendijk: “By playing the role of both shareholder and supplier for the Gemini wind farm, Siemens wants to show the world that we totally believe our product and the development of offshore wind farms. The Netherlands has perfect offshore wind conditions that can be used to build even larger offshore wind farms. The bigger, the better, as this will lead to wind farms that can be constructed and operated without governmental subsidy. To achieve this goal, the costs for offshore wind have to be reduced. This can be done by building larger turbines, as they will have more capacity and less maintenance and installation costs. Further maintenance costs can be reduced when the turbines are clustered at one place. Only then, an attractive levelised cost of electricity – LCOE – can be achieved.”

LCOE is a term related to measuring the performance of power generating technologies. It is calculated by summing up all the involved costs during the lifetime of technology generation divided by the units of energy produced during this lifetime. If the involved costs for generating offshore wind drop down, the more financially attractive the LCOE will be compared to competing power generating technologies.

Challenges

The offshore wind industry is relatively new and faces many challenges, ranging from technological to legislative and societal. The road towards sustainable energy is not without misfortunes. During 2013 it was found that the wind turbines of the Princess Amalia Wind Farm were no longer standing firmly. The construction method of cement glue grout was responsible for this problem, causing the middle-part of the mill to sag.

Eneco stated that despite the model calculations, the forces of waves and the wind influenced the attachment of the cement glue, resulting in sags varying from millimetres to centimetres with the risk of windmills falling over. However, this did not influence the production capacity of the wind farm and after maintenances the wind mills are now standing firmly. Fortunately, newer wind farms have been built according to enhanced construction methods, preventing the wind turbines from sagging.

Eneco currently faces another challenge. In order to encourage a free energy market in Europe, the Dutch supreme court recently decided that energy companies should split off their distribution networks from their other activities. This should protect consumers from the influence of mighty corporations in the energy market. Therefore, Eneco is against the legislation that forces energy companies to split off their distribution network, a law that is currently active only in the Netherlands. Eneco states that they have to compete with other energy companies from abroad who don’t have to split off their energy network. According to Eneco, if this split off will happen, investing in sustainable energy will not be profitable anymore. Time will tell if the Dutch government changes her mind.

Innovation for the future

The offshore wind industry is focussing on the future. In a few years, more wind farms will be operating to achieve the goals of the Energy Agreement and the Kyoto Protocol. Furthermore, large investments are made to encourage technological innovation, making offshore wind energy more and more attractive. “We have to keep optimising our wind turbines to get more energy out of them. Eventually, this may lead to other ways of offering service and other vessels. Nowadays, maintenance employees will return ashore after a couple of hours working on the turbines at sea. When offshore wind farms are getting bigger and further offshore, hotel vessels or working stations will come into picture”, says Luijendijk. So, innovation in the offshore wind industry is not only for the sake of better turbines, but the involved legislation, vessels and energy grid are evolving simultaneously causing a breath of fresh air in the energy supply system of the future. Luijendijk concludes: “We are eager to build many more wind farms at sea after the Gemini project, making wind at sea even more attractive for investors in the future!”

Timo Meester