The recent announcement that a wind turbine farm would be developed in the Veenkoloniën (former peat bogs) in Drenthe was not well received by all.
According to Kees Pieters, a researcher at the Nederwind research agency, there is a way to make everyone happy: “move the turbines offshore.”
In a report by RTV Drenthe, Pieters explains that it is cheaper to build the turbines offshore than on land. “In the Netherlands, there are plans to build about 1,000 of them. If all of them are built offshore, that could save nearly one billion euros.”
Residents duped
The government has to pay a subsidy to cover the cost differential between wind power and fossil fuels when projects are built on land. “At sea, the only government expense is building a network offshore, and that is considerably less expensive to do.”
Pieters says that building wind turbines on land would actually be a net loss for the average Dutch consumer: “They will end up paying too much for green energy. The return on investment from offshore wind turbines is much higher.”
As far as Pieters is concerned, it has been demonstrably proven that offshore wind is the cheapest option and that should be the end of the discussion. “Whether the government gets on board or not is a matter of issues playing out behind the scenes which are rarely informed by logic.”
