The Netherlands awarded the tender for the subsidy-free offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust (noord) to CrossWind – a joint venture between Shell and Eneco, Kallanish Energy reports.
The ministry of economic affairs and climate policy said the companies won the bid thanks to their proposal to apply five innovative technologies to the country’s third offshore wind farm.
To handle the intermittence issue of renewables generation, CrossWind plans to test a variety of innovations in energy storage and flexibility. They can all be rolled out in larger scale in the future.
These include a floating solar park; a short-term battery storage; turbines that are optimally tuned to the network to minimize the negative ‘wake’-effects that wind turbines have on each other; green hydrogen as a further storage technique; and the combination of these individual measures to ensure a continuous power supply regardless of the wind situation.
The 750-megawatts (MW) farm will be located 18.5 kilometers off the coast of the Dutch province of North Holland. It will feature 69 wind turbines and should be operational in 2023. The project will supply 16% of the Netherlands power needs.
Shell said offshore wind will play a pivotal role in the global energy transition, and will also be another important next step in its ambition to become a net-zero emission energy business by 2050 or sooner.
“This wind farm is a crucial part of a new value chain – from wind to hydrogen – with our ambition to build a green hydrogen plant in Rotterdam and with NortH2,” commented Maarten Wetselaar, Director of Shell Integrated Gas and New Energies.
The Netherlands currently has 1 gigawatt (GW) of offshore wind capacity, but this is growing to 2.5 GW by year-end. The country aims to increase installed capacity to 4.7 GW by 2023, and by 11 GW by 2030. Offshore wind would then account for 40% of the Dutch power supply.
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