Shell Consortium Wins Dutch Offshore Wind Project

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--A group led by oil and gas major Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) has scooped one of Europe's leading offshore wind projects in the Netherlands.

The Dutch government has awarded the Borssele III and IV contract to the consortium following its winning strike bid price, excluding transmission costs, of 5.45 euro cents ($0.58) per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The windfarms will have a combined generating capacity of up to 700 megawatts (MW). The partners also include Dutch marine engineering firm Van Oord (Rotterdam), Eneco (Rotterdam, Netherlands) and Diamond Generating Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mitsubishi Corporation (Tokyo). MHI Vestas Wind Systems A/S (OMX:VWS) (Aarhus, Denmark) will supply the turbines, and the project is expected to be commissioned in 2020.

The bid is significantly lower than the winning bid for the first Borssele 1 and 2 windfarms, which were won by DONG Energy (Fredericia, Denmark) with a bid of 7.27 euro cents ($0.78) per kWh this summer. At the time, they were the first offshore wind projects to break the 100-euro-per-megawatt hour (MWh) barrier. For additional information, see July 15, 2016, article--DONG Wins Dutch Offshore Wind Tender.

The government said that the combined Borssele 3 & 4 project will require a subsidy of just 300 million euro ($318 million) compared to the five billion euro ($5.3 billion) it originally projected.

Announcing the tender result, Minister Kamp of Economic Affairs said: "If the electricity price develops as we expect, in 7.5 years' time subsidies will no longer be required for the production of electricity from offshore windfarms. That brings the Government's aim for renewables to compete with fossil fuels without subsidy within reach. The Netherlands is a front runner in the development of offshore wind energy, creating many opportunities for the Dutch industry. With these winners, this becomes even more clearly visible."

The Netherlands intends to build five offshore projects, with three more left to be awarded. All of the projects will have generating capacities of roughly 700 MW, and each will be capable of powering up to 1 million homes.

The cost of building offshore windfarms has been dropping fast in the past year, with intense price competition between major players. Last month, Sweden's state-owned energy company Vattenfall (Stockholm) saw off its rivals by submitting the lowest bid to secure the 600-MW Kriegers Flak offshore windfarm contract from Denmark's government. For additional information, see November 14, 2016, article--Vattenfall Blows Rivals Away for Largest Nordic Windfarm.

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