Big companies keen on wind energy
In a full-page advert in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, 20 major Dutch companies push for wind farms to be built in the North Sea. The World Wildlife Fund has already started a campaign for wind energy at sea, in association with the power companies, Dutch Railways and the Rabobank. Offshore wind farms are apparently a hot topic for businesspeople and environmentalists alike.
WWF and its campaign partners want 6000 MegaWatts of wind capacity to be realised at sea as soon as possible. This is enough to power six million households and all the trains in the country.
Chris Westra is an offshore wind energy specialist at the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands, and director of ‘We at Sea’, a think tank focused on of large-scale wind farming in the North Sea. He says there is a good reason why big companies are suddenly so concerned about offshore wind energy.
“It’s because we’re getting a bit nervous about the pace things are moving at. The government is committed both nationally and at European level to 6000 MegaWatts by the year 2020, and if we carry on as we are now, we won’t manage it. I can see there’s a lot of hard work going on in the ministries at the moment, but I think a bit more is needed from the politicians. Everyone needs to know we really have to invest in offshore wind farming. And the politicians in The Hague haven’t got it into their heads properly.”
Profits!
It’s not that all these big Dutch companies have suddenly gone ‘green’. Adding an environmentally friendly touch to your company’s image is a bonus, but according to Mr Westra, the only reason Ballast Nedam, Siemens, KPN and the other companies backing the advert are so keen to start building offshore wind farms is because they offer a chance to make profits.
“On land you’re talking about investing millions. When it comes to wind energy at sea, we’re talking about investing billions. That’s the reason, and all these people can see it too. They see a huge market in it.”
To generate 6000 MegaWatts of offshore wind energy, it will take 1,200 turbines of 5 MegaWatts each in the North Sea. And as far as Mr Westra can see, there’s easily enough room for them.
Engineer Cees van den Tak begs to differ. He works at the Maritime Research Institute Netherlands, and specialises in shipping safety in relation to offshore wind farms. He says that presently there isn’t room for 6000 MegaWatts of capacity.
“It’s a real problem. It would be all right in the northernmost tip of the North Sea where there isn’t much shipping, but that’s much too expensive. It would simply cost too much to get the power to the coast and it would take too much subsidy to make it possible.”
Mr Van den Tak says that what has to be prevented at all costs is a tanker full of chemicals crashing into a wind turbine. An example of a nightmare scenario would be a 100-metre turbine being knocked over and crashing down on an LPG ship. He believes the Dutch part of the North Sea is too full, and politicians need to make some tough choices.
Defence, shipping and sand extraction all stake a claim on the space available at sea, and they will have to move over for wind farms. If the government deals with this thorny question, 6000 MegaWatts of capacity would be feasible. But other things will have to make way for it.
Offshore wind energy — a good idea?
The question is whether offshore wind energy is such a good option in the first place. The fact remains that to tighten every bolt you have to send a ship, maritime turbines are expensive, and it costs a fortune to transport the power they generate. And in ten years the price of solar energy is expected to be able to compete with current electricity prices.
Researcher Chris Hellinga of Delft University of Technology says that while it’s true that offshore wind farms are expensive, there is much less room available for wind turbines on land. We will therefore have no choice but to develop offshore farms if we want to make the energy supply as clean as possible in future.
Back to 2008
It remains to be seen whether the Dutch companies’ appeal to the government will produce quick enough results. There is money to be made from wind energy in the North Sea, but if no clear decisions come from government, the big Dutch companies might lose interest in making the mega-investments needed.
By Thijs Westerbeek van Eerten*
* RNW translation (mb)
1 September 2008
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