October 7, 2013
Netherlands

Windmills cost much more than Energy Agreement states

Audrey Graanoogst | NL Times | 7 October 2013 | www.nltimes.nl

The government plans, to generate a lot more wind energy, cost much more than anticipated, state eleven scientists in a letter to Minister Henk Kamp (Economic Affairs).For the next ten years, the investments should not be 3.7 billion euros, but rather 19 billion, according to the scientists.

The numbers in the so-called Energy Agreement are far too rosy. The Social and Economic Council (SER), under whose direction the negotiations for the agreement were carried out, too easily assumed the colored information from the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN).

Windmill parks require more investments over a longer period. Every five years there’s a cost increase of forty percent, yet the numbers show an unfounded reduction in cost for the construction of parks, according to the scientists.

Furthermore, according to the signatories of the letter, the CPB (Centraal Plan Bureau) is too optimistic about the economic impact of wind energy on land. The efficiency of a wind turbine is much less than the forty percent assumed.


URL to article:  https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2013/10/07/windmills-cost-much-more-than-energy-agreement-states-2/