The Belgian government has threatened to strip developers of the rights to build three North Sea offshore wind farms.
Minister Phillipe De Backer indicated that officials will move to withdraw the concessions on the grounds that projects require too many public subsidies.
The government threat to remove the rights to build was first reported exclusively in subscriber-only newsletter reNEWS.
Projects in the firing line are Otary’s 300MW Mermad and 246MW Seastar and InControl’s 224MW Northwester 2.
Otary said it was “surprised” by the announcement as “the support level talks still have to be commenced and no figures have been communicated”.
“We can confirm that the support level will be significantly lower than the support granted to under-construction wind farms in Belgium and neighbouring countries,” it added.
Otary added it is hopeful of agreeing a support level in the coming weeks in line with government policies and Belgium’s 2020 climate targets.
Image: existing Belgian assets include Belwind (Van Oord)
