Zero bids in another offshore wind auction

On behalf of the Ministry of Climate Policy and Green Growth, the RVO published a notice with the title No applications for construction of new wind farm in the North Sea.

It also said that the results of the auction were no surprise and that it ‘already took into account that there might not be any applications’. A new tender round will be held next year, which will be adjusted as part of an action plan.

Blaming costs for wind farm developers, the RVO says the Dutch are not alone in struggling to find developers willing to take the risk.

“This is also reflected in other European countries, such as Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Belgium. There, too, no applications were received for permits or permit rounds were postponed due to limited interest from the market,” it says. ”The government is taking action to prevent the development of offshore wind farms from coming to a standstill next year.”

The action will take the form of subsidies, namely €950 million that has already been reserved from the Climate Fund for 2GW permits for sites that the ministry will identify in January.

It says the government is also working on a new form of financial support for wind energy.

Other auction failures

In August, a similar failure happened in Germany, which tried to auction two areas in the North Sea – areas N-10.1 and N-10.2 – for delivery by 2031.

“The first-ever absence of bids in an offshore wind auction round, together with the sharply reduced interest in the June 2-25 auction, shows that risks for offshore wind park developers have increased significantly in recent years,” said Kerstin Andreae, chair of the Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft (BDEW), or German Association of Energy and Water Industries.

“Causes include higher project and capital costs due to geopolitical tensions and supply chain bottlenecks, as well as increasingly unpredictable price and volume risks in the electricity market. The currently planned high installation density also reduces full-load hours on the offered sites through shadowing effects.”

In December 2024, just over a year ago, a similar failure to attract bids happened in Denmark, and in 2023 in the UK no bids were received in its 6th auction round (AR6), although more recent auctions have been more successful.

WindEurope and the Global Wind Energy Council have been contacted for comment.