In this country full of knowledge about water and wind, the changing climate quickly became urgent.
What started with a lot of scepticism and doubt, developed into the belief that we can succeed.
Fueled by ambition, pioneers took steps into unknown terrain.
Stormy developments never arise by themselves.
They are created.
This is the story of Offshore Wind.
We are currently in Egmond aan Zee.
Today, the first offshore wind farm in the Netherlands was put into use...
a fantastic project where around 36 large wind turbines provide energy for...
at least a hundred thousand households. Providing clean energy.
And that is something to be very proud of.
What started small and fragmented became an important part of the Energy Agreement.
And what followed was the Roadmap to 2023.
The Energy Agreement was signed this afternoon, after months of negotiations.
Under the leadership of the Social Economic Council, employers, employees...
and environmental organisations have made far-reaching agreements on energy savings...
and making our energy more sustainable.
The Dutch Government wants to go from 1 gigawatt to 4.5 gigawatts of offshore wind in 2023...
enough for 16 percent of our current electricity consumption.
This growth requires the realisation of large wind farms.
Three energy areas in the North Sea are designated for this purpose.
Borssele, Hollandse Kust (zuid) and Hollandse Kust (noord).
It is, of course, a very large project to ensure that there are...
a lot of offshore wind turbines, large wind turbines...
and all with the licensing, planning...
everything that comes with it.
It was a very large project.
Particularly in the field of energy and climate policy...
we have actually been pursuing a zigzag policy in the Netherlands for years.
Both NGOs and the business community, but also...
other social organisations, were like...
‘Yes, it cannot be done this way any longer’.
We must come together and try to find a stable course for the Netherlands.
The aim was to get companies to agree...
to agree to produce and install those wind turbines and there.
So we had to arrange the planning as a government.
We had to arrange the permits, the tenders...
we had ensure that the financing was in place...
there had to be sufficient political support, also in the longer term.
And we had to arrange the onshore connections for the electricity that came to the country.
We had to arrange all that.
Offshore wind was actually in its infancy.
It was still a very nascent technology.
There were a few elements that were crucial in that agreement.
So that is not just the rollout path of 3.5 gigawatts.
It was also the reciprocal performance agreement...
that the sector would then achieve a 40 percent cost reduction and the Government...
would remove risks from companies.
We knew that if we did our own work...
at the ministry well, if everything was arranged properly...
the companies could concentrate solely on the technology and the price.
The ministries actually worked somewhat separately at first.
After 2013, they opted for a different collaboration, with one...
with one overall programme director who then coordinated efforts...
which allowed for the development of the site system and tender system...
and the designation of the offshore wind farm zones...
in a much more successful and effective manner.
As a result, the sector was no longer sent from pillar to post...
and we could develop this together.
Within the national government, the Ministry of Economic Affairs...
was responsible for this task and worked closely...
with the Netherlands Enterprise Agency and Rijkswaterstaat.
And with TenneT as the grid operator in the North Sea...
these organisations implemented the Offshore Wind policy.
We obviously had no experience with offshore wind at all.
And I thought: okay, offshore wind, yes how?
I will probably need a few more colleagues to realise that.
The construction of an offshore power network by grid operator TenneT...
marked the start of Offshore Wind.
When the Roadmap started, or actually the preparation for it...
the question was: would TenneT be given the role of offshore grid operator and why would that be?
And then I was invited with the then CEO of TenneT, Mel Kroon...
by the Minister of Economic Affairs at that time, Mr Kamp.
Before I even sat down, the question was...
I heard that you can’t do that and you have 45 minutes to explain that you can.
We did that and after the discussion he said...
"Well, I am confident that you can do it.”
“And I really want you to make it a success, because I look to you for it."
Kamp had agreed that 3,500 megawatts would be installed offshore.
Obviously, he didn't have a good idea of how big those wind farms should be.
When we thought about it, we thought: If you want standardisation...
it would be much better to have each wind farm approximately the same size.
So then, which was really very special, we said...
"We are doing five wind farms of 700 megawatts."
Of course, that also meant that we had to plot where those wind farms would be located.
Previously, the developers would figure that out, but now we did.
We said: "On that spot, there alone, there will be a wind farm."
Wind farms produce electricity...
and we collect it in a so-called platform or a socket...
and there it is converted to a higher voltage level...
so it can be transported to land and there it arrives at the onshore substation...
and feeds into the high-voltage grid that you know on land.
We knew that we had to build five offshore transformer substations, sockets.
And we said: we are going to standardise them.
The big advantage is that...
for example with spare parts, with one transformer...
or two transformers, you can do five.
Otherwise you need a spare part every time.
These are expensive parts.
You can also actually maintain them cheaper...
because they are always the same.
And what we were also able to do, because we were the offshore grid operator...
was immediately start with all permits and the like with, for example, project number five...
so that you were actually able to reduce the risks.....
in the entire overall process for the wind farm developers.
A project the size of Offshore Wind encounters enough obstacles.
These can only be overcome if the sector knows...
how to work with each other and put their heads together.
The history of wind energy in the Netherlands goes back to 1972.
That was actually the first time that people started thinking about...
the finite nature of the natural resources we have and the use of fossil energy.
At that time a number of them started by putting wind turbines in their backyard.
On a lamppost literally.
At a certain point they started building bigger wind turbines and more professionally.
Then they had more power than they needed at home.
And then they thought: ‘we can feed that into the grid.’
But those grid operators said: "Feeding into the grid, wind turbines and associated hardware...
I don't feel like doing that."
Then they united, all those people together.
hey said: "Let's work together to realise such a connection."
And to this day, that is an important part of our work.
Our advocacy consists of trying to shape the energy transition as best as possible towards the...
government and network ompanies and also in cooperation.
The effects on nature have been taken into account from the start.
Wind farms have consequences for nature in the North Sea area, positive and negative.
Whether it concerns marine mammals, fish, birds, bats or benthic (seabed) animals.
In the Offshore Wind Ecological Programme, the national government examines these effects...
and tries to minimise the negative consequences and stimulate positive opportunities.
More offshore wind is desperately needed to combat climate change.
We cannot do that without nature.
The North Sea nature is impoverished and we must do everything we can...
to strengthen North Sea nature again.
Nature & Environment and the North Sea Foundation took up...
the challenge at a certain point and we said...
We can still learn so much from nature reinforcement in wind farms, especially underwater.
That is why they developed the Rich North Sea programme.
With the Rich North Sea, we are investigating which nature-enhancing measures work well and...
we can eventually roll this out to all wind farms.
Actually in the wind farm you also have beta platforms and the cables that run there and back.
On those cables, in particular the cable crossings as we call them...
you can place very nice stone deposits.
But we can also look at what nature-enhancing measures...
we can apply there.
And that is a win-win.
When we were developing the substation platform...
at one point, I and a number of colleagues were thinking...
erhaps there are more parties...
that need fixed locations to, for example, take measurements.
hen we started asking around and it turned out that there was enormous interest.
That concerns weather, radar, but...
also bird radar, but also bats.
So all those kinds of measuring systems.
A kind of mast has been made.
Rijkswaterstaat has coordinated that and they are on all our platforms built to date.
With that, we have been able to provide extra added value...
for Dutch society.
In 2013, the cost of offshore wind energy was, I believe, 17 cents per kilowatt hour...
and that had to go to about 5 cents per kilowatt hour to become competitive.
To be able to generate wind energy without a subsidy.
We knew that was possible.
When we started, offshore wind was simply an expensive technology.
We thought, taking into account subsidy amounts offered in other countries...
it would be between 12 and 15 cents.
In the end, Ørsted won the first tender with 7.26 cents.
That was really special, that was really so low. That also went around the world.
Then you got that second tender and Shell won with Eneco.
That was 5 point something cents.
That was even lower. We were really overwhelmed.
Vattenfall won the third tender, without subsidy.
All those parties really stuck their necks out...
to realise the wind farms in very special circumstances.
It was a period of...
hard standardisation in the sector...
where the supply chain actually became increasingly expensive.
Because we were the largest and had most of that stuff, monopiles etc...
we were also the first to see that those costs really came down.
As a result, we were able to submit a very low bid at the time...
which other parties thought was impossible.
Being the first at Borssele I and II brought many opportunities...
because we were able to work well together and actually create a kind of template as an industry...
but especially in collaboration with the Government, with TenneT, with Rijkswaterstaat...
with Rijkswaterstaat to shape projects, to design contracts, to be able to draw up collaborations...
that were used in the future for the other wind farms that followed us.
The biggest challenge of Borssele III and IV was actually to build it in a very short time.
One of the most important optimisations was to just do it faster...
and implement a compressed construction schedule.
We finally did it in one year.
That is only possible if you have a well-developed chain around you.
That is absolutely the case in the Netherlands and Europe.
The challenge with innovations is that they have to be demonstrated in practice...
so that is why the Dutch Government designated Borssele V as an innovation site.
Where new innovations can be demonstrated.
And that is where the innovations such as the Slip Joint, are located.
This works like two coffee cups that you slide over each other.
And because you slide them over each other, they then get stuck.
That is the simplest connection you can come up with.
And that means that, in the future, installation of wind turbines will be much faster.
In many ways this was the perfect project to achieve a significant reduction in costs.
Of course, quite a bit of preparatory work had already been done in the site decisions by the Government...
which gave us a very good idea of the site and what was expected of the project.
Also that the grid connection fell outside the scope of the developer, that makes a big difference...
and makes it easier to focus on the wind farm itself.
he cost reductions were already rapid, because the preconditions were good here.
Also the wind and the soil. Everything was good.
So this could be the first project to be built without subsidies.
At Hollandse Kust (noord), we have had two major challenges.
That was, first, to build the wind farm within three years.
The second challenge is to demonstrate five innovations to supply more constant electricity.
And we do that with a subsidy-free wind farm.
he most exciting moment is actually: we can believe in that...
but does the market also believe in it?
And at this point we have signed all our contracts.
So there are market parties who also believe in this just like we do.
And we have actually started constructing these innovations.
I think the increase in scale has been the most important element in the success of Offshore Wind.
We have grown from 3.5 megawatt turbines to 15 megawatt turbines.
Then you might think: yes, what is that really?
There are hydroelectric power stations that are happy just because they generate 15 megawatts.
We simply install those turbines and masse, of 15 megawatts each.
So that is really a big step forward.
In this sector, employment will only keep increasing...
because the rollout of wind energy worldwide has only just begun.
So if you have to study something now, this is a wonderful sector...
that offers a bright future.
The Netherlands was on course.
The Roadmap is moving faster and the new wind farms will generate even...
more than initially expected, with as much as 4.7 gigawatts installed.
And the first subsidy-free wind farm will be completed in 2023.
These positive outcomes ensure that new, even bigger plans are made.
The Cabinet proudly presents the long-awaited climate plans.
I think it has turned out better than we could have expected.
It is more ambitious...
than we had thought.
It is more affordable for people than we thought in December.
We are clearly, and more sharply than before taking a pioneering role in this the transition.
And we are going to entice everyone to participate.
The Climate Agreement sets a goal to install a...
total capacity of 11 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030.
This 11 gigawatts accounts for 40 percent of our current electricity consumption.
As a country, you also want to be self-sufficient to a large extent.
Having control over your own energy production and energy infrastructure...
ensuring you can do that for a predictable price.
For the first time in the Netherlands, we have also thought about...
what will our energy system of the future look like?
How do we ensure we achieve this on time in the coming years?
That we produce sufficient clean electricity in the Netherlands...
and that the plans and projects we have also connect well with this.
We are also working with the other users of the North Sea...
to maintain sufficient support for the great ambitions we have there.
The European CO2 reduction targets will be adjusted in 2022.
Offshore wind energy capacity will be further increased to approximately 21 gigawatts.
Good for 75 percent of our current electricity consumption.
The fact that the business community, government, politicians, civil servants, social organisations...
nature and environmental organisations...
were prepared to make agreements together for a period of ten years...
and really say: 'We will put our shoulders to the wheel together and we we also adhere to it'...
that has ultimately been the success, and that is also the success of the Netherlands.
Creating success is one thing...
but expanding success is not as easy as is sometimes thought.
For that, we have to look carefully at what has happened over the past ten years.
A total of 21 gigawatts is a huge ambition.
And we saw, because we were already working on the first projects...
that this ambition was coming. It was being increased again and again...
so we could anticipate it.
So we have already started with the projects, started with the permits...
and we also started to define our strategy.
This also includes continuing to standardise...
but also that we continue with long-term partnerships.
So we have entered into tenders.
We have actually already contracted all the partners...
for example, the contractors, for all projects for that 21 gigawatts.
So we can already get started on all those projects.
We at Nature & Environment are really proud of the fact that there is now 4.7 gigawatts in the North Sea.
We also know that much more needs to be added...
and we are happy to do that together with the offshore industry and science.
Because we also know that offshore wind can only coexist if we also strengthen nature.
It is still a challenge to achieve that.
Especially when it comes to ecology, that remains very exciting.
Then, of course, soon we might have 21 gigawatts...
of offshore wind in 2030-2031 and that is really gigantic.
We can really benefit from that.
If you confront each other when realising these types of projects...
nothing will come of it.
So what happened from the start is that both civil servants and...
companies looked for opportunities for cooperation and took advantage of them.
That is something that went very well with this major Offshore Wind project.
I am most proud of the fact that we have succeeded in converting a period...
before 2013, where there was no plan for the energy transition...
into stable long-term policy through the Energy Agreement.
It just worked.
What I am extremely proud of is how hard everyone has worked in recent years.
Everyone has really stuck their neck out to make this happen.
So we owe them many thanks.
This is how offshore wind energy was introduced in the Netherlands.
This stream of progress will continue to develop in the coming years.
There is no shortage of ambition.
All the lessons learned, experience gained and collaborations formed...
give us a solid foundation for the future.