Global Onshore Wind Market Report

The Netherlands has set ambitious carbon neutrality targets, which were renewed after the election and formation of the new government in 2021. To achieve these targets, the country aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least 60% by 2030 and 80% by 2040 (Government of the Netherlands). As a result, renewable technologies need to be rapidly deployed to replace conventional sources, such as coal-based power by 2029 and nuclear power by 2033. To speed up the process, stringent efforts are required to accelerate approvals for onshore wind projects, which currently have a lead time of 1.5-2 years. As of 2022, 1.3GW of onshore wind projects are in the permitting stage (Wind Europe, 2023).

The Dutch government has allocated a budget for achieving its energy transition objectives. Among its plans is an investment of EUR 28 billion towards renewable energy generation (Euro News, 2023). In 2022, the government announced its intention to involve local communities in project approvals and seek their assistance in onshore wind project developments to reduce public opposition. In addition, the government has included new distance rules for onshore wind turbines in its coalition agreement to address noise pollution and health concerns (Norton Rose Fullbright, 2021). To achieve its goal of decarbonizing the energy sector by 2035, the government plans to convert gas power stations to hydrogen, connect wind farms to battery storage, and create offshore solar fields with a total capacity of 3GW. These policies aim to streamline the approval process for onshore wind projects and support energy storage development.

The Netherlands has taken significant steps towards climate neutrality policies as gas and coal prices have skyrocketed in Europe. To achieve its targets, the government has changed the SDE+ to SDE++ for Sustainable Energy Production and Climate Transition Stimulation, which grants subsidies to organizations generating renewable energy. The government has allocated a budget of EUR8 billion under the SDE++ scheme in 2023 for renewable energy growth, particularly for solar and wind energy. Onshore wind has significant potential to achieve climate targets and is estimated to add around 835 MW of new capacity in 2023 (Shftlimburg Netherlands, 2023).

The government’s contributions towards the industry have increased the viability of investments from corporates and energy developers. In addition, the Netherlands and Germany have the lowest cost of capital for utility-scale onshore wind projects, according to IRENA. Corporate buyers have shown interest in investing in the country through the PPA route. For instance, Google has signed a 10-year PPA deal with Eneco to obtain 153 MW from two new wind farms, Windpark Fryslân (nearshore-73.5MW) and Windpark Kroningswind (onshore-79.8MW) (DCD, 2023). This indicates that the onshore wind industry in the Netherlands has substantial prospects for unsubsidized projects from corporate buyers.

There is significant potential for progress in the repowering sector, which has already adopted onshore wind energy and now has many decommissioned turbines. In the Netherlands alone, around 80MW of wind power has been decommissioned as of 2022, making it the second highest in Europe after Germany (Wind Europe, 2023). This presents a sizable business opportunity for Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to tap into the repowering segment and replace decommissioned turbines with more advanced technologies that can increase installation capacities.

Integrating renewable installation and repowering capabilities with the electricity grid is becoming increasingly important. Considering the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, the energy storage market has huge growth potential. Companies have already started to address this, with Roll-Royce announcing in November 2023 that it will build a 60MWh battery-based energy storage system, which is the largest battery storage project in the EU (PV Magazine, 2022). In a similar development, S4 Energy and ABB installed a hybrid battery-flywheel storage facility in the Netherlands in Q4 of 2022. The project features a 10MW battery system and a 3MW flywheel system (PV Magazine, 2022). With growing renewable energy projects and the need for better grid advancements, the potential of the energy storage market has yet to be fully realized, presenting a broad scope for exploration. It is estimated that between 29GW-54GW of energy storage will be required to support flexibility requirements in the country (Energy Institute, 2022).