Inhabitat reported that The Netherlands may become the world’s cheapest offshore wind farm that will be completed within 10 years, according to the government. The plans for a 700 megawatt wind farm are coming together and after considering about 38 bids from different developers, the cost of the Borssele offshore wind farm will be $2.9 billion less than the original estimate. Plus, the wind farm will have a higher output and will produce 22.5% more electricity than anticipated.
The Borssele wind farm under discussion will represent the sites that together generate clean energy nearly 14 times off the cost of the Zeeland province. Further on, the Borssele project will be expanded to include 5 separate sites, the last of which will be a smaller experimental farm that will be used in testing new wind energy technology. With sites I and II to be built with lots of savings because of government subsidies, it’s possible that the timeline for the other sites will be expedited.
According to Henk Kamps, The Netherlands’ minister of economic affairs, stated that the project has never been done before that an offshore wind farm can be built at such an affordable cost. The Dutch government control all requirements and conditions for building the wind farm has proved to be a complete success. The cost reduction represents a major breakthrough in transition to a more sustainable and renewable energy.
The wind farm will provide clean energy to about 1 million homes, and will expand to about 5 million once the remaining wind farms are built and completed. The Borssele wind farm will also provide 10,000 jobs as well as other economic advantages for the nearby communities. The projects are part of The Netherlands larger strategy to in increasing offshore wind energy generation capacity from the existing 1,000 megawatt to a total of 4,500 megawatts. This will contribute to the country’s goal of 16% renewable energy by the year 2023.
At present, the world’s largest offshore wind farm in the London Array project, which provides 630 megawatts of power.
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Image credit: Inhabitat
Solar Trust Centre Team
