RVO, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, has received no bids for the slimmed down 1GW Nederwiek 1-A offshore wind site.
The RVO said it had not received any interest for the site, which is located about 95km from the west coast of Texel in the North Sea and covers an area of about 149.2 km 2, by the tender deadline today.
It claimed the outcome had not been a surprise with the Ministry of Climate Policy and Green Growth (KGG) “already taking into account that there might not be any applications”.
This, it said, was down to rising costs and less demand for electricity putting the development of offshore wind energy under pressure. There will be a new tender round in 2026.
“The sustainability of Dutch industry, among others, is lagging behind. This has made it more difficult for wind farm developers to conclude long-term electricity contracts before the construction of a wind farm starts. This has reduced their willingness to invest,” the RVO said.
The sale was run in a comparative assessment with a financial bid format and carried out fully online.
Bidders had to show a huge commitment to ecology and environment, accounting for 38% of the total points awarded. This included recycling blades, research on the biomass accumulation for turbines and foundations as well as shutting down power from the plant if nearby birds are in danger.
In addition, only projects with monopile foundations were considered, due to a lack of suitable research on other foundation types during the Environmental Impact Assessment.
The site did have an original planned capacity of 2GW but this was reduced to lessen the investment required by developers and the financial risks.