Eneco drops out of tender for massive Dutch offshore wind farm

Eneco Energy

28/03/2024 08:56

AMSTERDAM, March 28 (Reuters) - Dutch energy company
Eneco has reversed its decision to participate in the tender to
build a large offshore wind farm in the Dutch part of the North
Sea, citing rising costs and risks of delays.
    Eneco's decision is a setback for the Dutch government,
given the company's previous support in the rollout of offshore
wind power over the past decade. The company has four offshore
wind farms in the Dutch part of the North Sea and is
constructing a fifth. 
    It had planned to bid for the new 4 gigawatt (GW) wind farm
spread over two locations 60 km (37 miles) off the Dutch coast,
together with Norwegian oil and gas group Equinor  EQNR.OL  .
    However, Eneco has decided that the business case for a bid
has been eroded due to rising raw material costs, uncertainty
over electricity prices and demand, high interest rates and
supply chain problems.
    Eneco called on the government to reconsider the design of
its offshore wind tenders, saying they focus too much on the
price builders are willing to pay.
    It also said tenders for the wind farms are now too large
and should be limited to about 1 GW to reduce risk.
    The tender for the 4GW project, the Netherlands' largest so
far, closes on Thursday at 1600 GMT.
    A government spokesperson said there was no certainty about
the number of bids, though several builders had signalled
interest in the project.
    "We realise the market circumstances have changed since the
tender was designed, complicating the business case," said
climate ministry spokesperson Noortje Beckers.
    Eneco's existing projects have helped to increase capacity
in the Dutch North Sea to almost 5 GW and the government is
aiming to increase to this almost 21 GW by 2031.    
    
    

 (Reporting by Bart Meijer
Editing by David Goodman)
 ((Bart.Meijer@thomsonreuters.com;))