Now, the Netherlands is ready to shift the financial burden to ordinary households and industrial consumers, thus ensuring the source of wind power and attracting private investors. Since January 2013, the Netherlands has imposed fees on households and businesses. At the same time, the government has also allowed investors to apply for renewable energy projects.
However, the fees collected by the new charging system are only equivalent to one-third of the previous industry subsidy, and the financing pricing scope also makes the parties concerned tend to choose a project with a lower cost than wind power. According to Reuters, the outlook for Dutch wind power seems to be bleak.
The article stated that the Netherlands has been developing and utilizing wind energy for centuries, but now the Netherlands is weakening its iconic technology. Due to the high cost of construction and maintenance of offshore/offshore wind power, and the accusation of land wind power, the Netherlands has entered a dilemma of dilemma.
Although offshore wind power generates more electricity than land-based wind power, its construction and maintenance costs are twice that of the latter. In order to withstand strong winds and seawater, offshore wind turbines must be more sturdy; due to their distance from the coast, their maintenance also requires special equipment and transportation tools. Not only that, the cost of subsea drilling is more expensive, and connecting offshore wind farms to the land grid also requires additional costs.
However, land-based wind projects face resistance from local residents. In 1994, Urk, the Netherlands, prepared to build the largest land-based wind farm in the Netherlands and deploy 86 turbines, which is expected to supply 900,000 people. However, 20 years after the project was proposed, the construction work was finally started this year and it is planned to be completed in 2014. The only obstacle currently facing the project is the opposition of local residents. Residents believed that more than 30 meters of turbines damaged the local landscape, and they also worried about safety and noise issues.
In fact, the city of Urk was previously an island. It was the use of windmills to drain the surrounding water before establishing a connection with the mainland. The Dutch Wind Energy Association stated that about half of the land wind projects in the Netherlands are in dispute. Industry analysts said that residents do not want the turbine to stand in their own backyard because it will affect the value of the property.
Renewable energy currently only meets 4% of total energy consumption in the Netherlands. The goal of increasing this ratio to 14% by 2020 is challenging. Paul van den Oosterkamp, ​​head of the Dutch Energy Research Center, said: "The most likely goal to achieve under the Dutch policy is 8% to 12%."
In the new plan of the Dutch government to attract private investors, investors can apply for renewable energy projects in four stages, and their government subsidies for electricity generated are between 0.09 and 0.15 euros per kilowatt. A spokesman for the Ministry of Economy, Agriculture and Innovation in the Netherlands stated that the new financing plan did not cover the current cost of offshore wind power subsidies because the average cost of technologies such as offshore wind, tidal power, wave energy and solar energy exceeded the maximum cost price of the new financing plan.
Dutch power company said that wind energy is essential to meet the green energy goals, but because it is too expensive, power companies cannot operate on their own. At present, the neighboring country of Germany, Germany, has nine renewable energy projects including wind farms that have encountered financing difficulties and are seeking investors.
Offshore wind turbine manufacturers believe that when calculating the cost of wind power, more fair comparisons need to be made. Even considering all relevant costs, wind power costs are not expensive. Because fossil fuels also need to consider hidden costs, such as coal transportation generates more carbon emissions, but they are not included in the cost of electricity.
Some people think that the negative impact of wind power is only temporary. The Dutch utility company Eneco stated that the government's new subsidy program is not a force because offshore wind power is a long-term project. However, the company believes that subsidies will return to the government's agenda in a matter of years.
In order to reduce emissions and meet the growing demand for electricity, the Netherlands has high hopes for wind power generation. In 2006, the Netherlands built the first offshore/offshore wind farm. However, Reuters said that the development of the green economy in the past five years does not seem clear. Due to the pressure to reduce the deficit, the Netherlands stated that the cost of offshore wind power is too high and the government will be unable to bear wind power subsidies of 450 million euros per year. (1 euro is about 8.55 yuan)