Eneco, Shell win Dutch offshore wind tender with 759-MW project

A joint venture between Dutch utility Eneco and oil and gas major Royal Dutch Shell Plc (AMS:RDSA) has won the tender for the third zero-subsidy offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea, to be built in the Hollandse Kust Noord zone.

Through their CrossWind consortium, Eneco and Shell will build a 759-MW wind park about 18.5 km off the coast of North Holland province, near the town of Egmond aan Zee. The two partners have already taken their final investment decisions on the project, the announcement says.

To deal with the intermittent nature of offshore wind, Eneco and Shell plan to incorporate some technology demonstrations into the project. These are: a floating solar power plant; short-term battery storage; turbine optimisations aimed at minimising the negative “wake” effects; and a green hydrogen system as an additional storage option.

When completed in 2023, the wind farm will be able to generate at least 3.3 TWh of electricity per year, or enough to meet the annual power needs of over 1 million local homes. The facility will use 69 Siemens Gamesa turbines of 11 MW each.

Shell and Eneco are also part of the consortium currently building the 731.5-MW Borssele III & IV offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.

By the end of 2020, the Netherlands expects to have almost 2.5 GW of offshore wind capacity, with plans to increase that to 4.7 GW by 2023. The total capacity is targeted to hit 11 GW by the end of the decade at which point it will account for 40% of the Netherlands’ total power demand.

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