GUEST BLOG: Offshore wind 2017 – quo vadis?
The year 2016 closed with some remarkable cost progress for offshore wind in Europe. The last tenders for offshore wind farms in the Netherlands and Denmark showed unexpectedly low bids with a price level of around 5 – 5,5 Cents per kWh not nearly expected by anyone familiar with the sector, certainly not before 2020. So what will the year 2017 bring?
So far Germany has been using a fixed feed-in tariff to develop all renewable energy sources since 25 years. The decision to switch to tendering procedures for wind power, onshore and offshore, therefore is a big leap and will certainly have major impacts. The results of international tenders will definitely influence the outcome of the German tenders. For this reason DNV and Renewable Energy Hamburg most cordially invite you to the conference “Hamburg Offshore Wind – HOW2017” to discuss the question ‘Offshore 2020 – Tenders as a way to reduce costs?’ on April 4th and 5th.
Compared to the Dutch and Danish projects, many of the German project are more distant to the coast and in deeper water. Furthermore the wind farm transformer substation has to be financed by the project developer instead of the transmission system operator. So at HOW 2017 we will certainly not compare Danish or Dutch apples to German oranges. But what most observers do expect is that the phenomenal price reductions elsewhere do clearly show the direction for German tenders.
And what does this mean for offshore wind in Germany after 2020? The offshore targets have been cut by the German governments in the past to 15 GW in 2030, also because the price level was considered too high. Should and will the German government reconsider targets after 2020 after the parliament election in September 2017? 2016 was an exciting year for offshore wind – 2017 will definitely be as exciting or even more!