The tension is rising: the winners of the Alpha and Beta tenders for the IJmuiden Ver wind energy area will be announced by RVO in mid-June. One of the parties competing for the exploitation of both plots is the Noordzeker consortium. The diverse group of partners is as determined as it is passionate and has groundbreaking reasons for participating.
Mission and vision
Various new tenders are being issued in the government's Wind Op Zee program. The tenders for which the permit process is currently underway are the Alpha and Bèta plots of 2 GW each in the IJmuiden Ver energy area (IJVER) located 62 kilometers off the coast of IJmuiden. In the tender criteria for the tenders, in addition to financial criteria, the Dutch government sets high requirements for circularity, ecology and International Corporate Social Responsibility (IMVO).
At the end of March 2024, the Noordzeker consortium submitted a bid for both tenders. In their own words, to contribute to a 'reliable supply of sustainable energy for a fair price'. The consortium notes that energy plays a role in political developments in the world and believes that the energy transition is going too slowly. Through participation, the participants want to gain more control over their own energy management by taking the energy supply of the Netherlands into their own hands and working on sustainability.
'Because the Netherlands benefits from a stable energy supply, independent of political developments in the rest of the world.'
The initiative
Noordzeker is an initiative of pension fund ABP , pension investor APG and wind farm developer SSE Renewables , with the aim of generating large-scale wind energy in the North Sea, with a stable price, for the coming decades.
Collaboration is sought with other sustainable parties in Europe, such as research institutes, universities, environmental organizations and the government. Because the consortium wants to make reliable production of wind energy possible through collaboration with experts in the field of sustainable energy, ecology and system integration.
The starting point is therefore not to make as much profit as possible in the short term, but rather over the longer term. The objectives also match the objectives of the pension funds: investing in energy generation from renewable sources contributes to a good return for the participants and a sustainable future for society for a long period of time.
Both ABP and SSE Renewables have been active in the offshore wind industry for some time. ABP invests in wind farms in the Netherlands, Germany, France and Sweden, among others.
SSE Renewables is a developer and operator of renewable energy in the UK and Ireland and is currently expanding operations in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. In addition, SSE Renewables owns 2 GW of onshore wind, 0.5 GW of offshore wind and 1.5 GW of hydropower in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
ABP and SSE Renewables previously signed the ICSR agreement for the renewable energy sector, which includes agreements on international corporate social responsibility.
Our North Sea Current (ONS)
Partner in the Noordzeker partnership is Onze NoordzeeStroom. This is an initiative of the interest group of energy cooperatives: Energie Samen and connector of energy projects: Windunie. Together they are connected through their supporters to the cooperative energy community in which approximately 700 energy cooperatives (with 120,000 members) work on the energy future of the Netherlands.
Harmen van Wijnen, chairman of the ABP pension fund, explains the collaboration:
As a pension fund with 3 million participants, we believe in the power of collectivity. We have the ambition to operate a large wind farm in the North Sea. With this we can not only ensure a good pension, but also affordable and clean energy for our participants and the Netherlands.
By giving local energy cooperatives the opportunity to participate, we ensure that Noordzeker not only benefits our pension participants, but everyone in the Netherlands who wants to participate. Wind belongs to all of us and everyone in the Netherlands should be able to reap the benefits."
Naturalis Biodiversity Center
The partners also joined forces with the Naturalis Biodiversity Center. There is relatively little knowledge about biodiversity in and above the sea. For this reason, Noordzeker and Naturalis will work together and actively contribute to increasing knowledge about biodiversity under and above water. We share all knowledge with everyone for whom it is relevant, making it of great value not only to Noordzeker, but to all wind farms worldwide. This benefits everyone, including nature, the climate, the energy transition and society.
With a team of more than 120 researchers and 8 research groups, Naturalis is the research institute in the Netherlands in the field of biodiversity.
One such research group is Marine Biodiversity. The group led by Prof. Dr. Willem Renema is concerned with clarifying the responses of marine organisms to environmental changes. That includes research on microorganisms around the world, in habitats ranging from the open ocean to shallow, sometimes brackish seas.
The Marine Evolution and Ecology research group, led by Dr. Katja TCA Peijnenburg, conducts research into organisms that drift on the currents of the ocean. The aim is to gain a general insight into the processes by which diversity in the open ocean is created and maintained, and to contribute to better predicting the consequences of global change .
Citizen participation as a tender criterion
The chairmen of Energie Samen and Windunie are currently working with Noordzeker to form a local participation, including an equity interest in the wind farm and control over part of the electricity.
They are particularly enthusiastic about the partnership because they want energy production to be in the hands of Dutch parties and to benefit everyone. In their view, the partnership ensures that Dutch citizens and companies have direct access to an offshore wind farm through energy cooperatives, including the power from that park.
Energie Samen envisions that the 'citizen participation' component could ideally become a permanent part of the tender methodology.
With this aim in mind, ONS has indicated that it will lobby the government to ensure that citizen participation and local ownership will be part of the tender criteria in the future for plots yet to be released in the North Sea.
For this purpose, Onze NoordzeeStroom will be present at WindDay 2024 on June 13. At the event, ONS will provide a knowledge session on local ownership to market parties in the offshore wind sector.
Alpha and Beta
The plans for Plot Alpha focus on ecology and biodiversity. Noordzeker has entered into a partnership with Naturalis Biodiversity Center for this purpose, among other things.
Bèta focuses on optimal integration of wind power into the Dutch electricity grid. When applying for a permit for this site, the applicant's contribution to the integration of the wind farm into the Dutch energy system carries extra weight. Noordzeker and ONS plan to supply 5% of system integration and are in discussions with various customers to reach joint intentions for this. Options are being investigated in which North Sea Power, for example, is used as a backbone for a Local4Local energy hub.
In the second half of June it will be clear which party wins the bid. Both Noordzeker and the parties behind ONS have indicated that they want to participate more often in bids for offshore wind energy in the future.
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