With 50 GW in plans by 2040, Dutch Gov’t to start work on pinpointing new offshore wind areas next year

The Dutch government will start identifying further offshore wind areas in 2023, following the recently announced targets of 50 GW by 2040 and 70 GW by 2050. Currently, the government is working on an outlook for offshore wind, which adds more forward-looking plans to the roadmap and accounts for larger wind areas, offshore hydrogen production, and offshore energy hubs.

In 2023, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy (EZK) and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management will commence work on designating new offshore wind farm zones that will be auctioned for building offshore wind farms in the period between 2030 and 2040, according to information shared by the EZK at a workshop held during Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference.

The Ministry is currently working on an outlook for 2050, which adds to the roadmap that the country has and aims to align policies with the new long-term goals, taking into account other technologies that are likely to come into play, including offshore hydrogen production, floating solar, and offshore energy hubs.

Mark Stuurman, Senior Policy Officer Offshore Wind at Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy, said that the roadmap, which foresees offshore wind deployment for around 10 years in advance is a “very strong instrument” the Netherlands has and it will not be replaced by the outlook and the new North Sea Energy Infrastructure Plan – a comprehensive offshore energy plan on which the government is also working.

All the developments will still land in the roadmap and the EZK will continue to add projects to the roadmap towards 2035 and 2040.

However, since offshore wind plans are increasing, and other energy developments could link to offshore wind, the country needs an adaptive and all-encompassing plan for beyond 2030, according to Stuurman.

“We have seen that offshore wind is growing and it is quickly becoming the largest energy source we have in the Netherlands, and that means that the decisions and the choices we make for offshore wind really impact the entire energy system and also, of course, all other stakeholders in the North Sea”, Mark Stuurman said.

“We want to make sure that the steps we take right now fit in the long term planning for the energy system”.

With the government now working on a plan for the entire entire energy system, and on the infrastructure plan for the North Sea that is part of it, the EZK wants to set clear targets for 2035, 2040 and 2050.

These more specific targets will enable the Ministry to make sure that the high scenarios can be realised, so that is why the EZK is preparing for the 50 GW in 2040 and 70 GW in 2050 now.

They will not be set in stone like in the roadmap, but provide a flexible path for after 2030, with relevant policies accompanying that.

“Why are we working on a vision for 2050 already now, in 2022? That is because for offshore wind, 2030 is really yesterday, 2035 is tomorrow and 2040, or even 2050, can be tomorrow with three times the capacity we have today”, Stuurman said.

Furthermore, Stuurman said the government needs to account for changes in technology, or what is possible for the North Sea in terms of all offshore energy technologies, and change the targets if need be, so the outlook would be adaptive.

Namely, the EZK expects from this long-term development of offshore wind to result in much bigger offshore wind farms built much farther offshore, with some linked to new technologies like offshore hydrogen and maybe even floating offshore solar. This also means it is likely that the Netherlands will also be moving towards building large-scale offshore energy hubs.

“We need to switch our approach from site by site development to big scale hub development”, Mark Stuurman said.

Looking at the policy developments to accommodate this capacity, firstly, the targets for offshore wind will be set in the national energy system plan, and the outlook will give guidance on how much of that capacity will be electrical and how much of it will be used for hydrogen production.

The government will perform a new investigation on landfall options for new offshore wind energy capacity and expects that there will need to be a new policy framework in place to enable the development of offshore energy hubs.

With technologies such as offshore hydrogen likely to be part of the offshore energy system, the EZK also wants to make sure the policy framework is in place in time and that the technologies are there in time in this regard, too, Stuurman said.

The Netherlands will invest in research and innovation in hydrogen, and the first offshore hydrogen demonstration projects are expected to be rolled out before 2030, according to Mark Stuurman from the EZK.

According to Joost Vermeulen from the EZK, who spoke about the North Sea Energy Infrastructure Plan 2050, the government does not know how long it will take before offshore hydrogen reaches production at scale, so the Infrastructure Plan, just like the offshore wind outlook, will be flexible in that regard.