The Belgian federal government has approved a revised regulatory framework to relaunch the tender for the first site of the Princess Elisabeth Zone (PEZ 1) (Belgium’s Energy Minister announcement, 18/07/2026).
PEZ 1 is expected to host an offshore wind park with an approximate capacity of 700 MW, located off the Belgian coast. The project will be developed on the first of the three plots comprising the Princess Elisabeth Zone (PEZ), which has a total planned capacity of 3.5 GW across all three areas.
According to the Energy Minister, the decision follows the government’s decision to suspend the previous tender in July 2025, as the required conditions for the project had not been secured. These included uncertainties regarding the support framework, the state aid approval process and the reinforcement of the onshore grid.
The government stated that the revised framework aims to establish a legally robust and market-based tender process, while incorporating proposals and recommendations from energy regulator CREG.
- The updated tender framework increases the maximum construction period from four to five years, removes the price cap, introduces a single two-sided Contract for Difference (CfD) support mechanism and eliminates the separate support scheme for fixed-price PPAs.
- Citizen participation will remain available but will no longer be compulsory. The tender will also introduce mandatory prequalification requirements covering cybersecurity, corporate responsibility, environmental sustainability and supply chain resilience under the European Net Zero Industry Act.
- Under the revised rules, at least 75% of turbines used in the project must not be manufactured or assembled in China. In addition, no more than four critical components per turbine may originate from or be assembled in China, while no more than 85% of permanent magnets used may be sourced from China.
Alongside the updated tender framework, the federal government has set 1 October 2031 as the final deadline for the first phase of the energy island to become operational.
The energy island will connect the new offshore wind parks to the onshore electricity grid. The government has decided to develop the grid infrastructure and the tender process in parallel to avoid unnecessary delays in the deployment of additional offshore capacity.
The revised tender decree will now be submitted to the Council of State for review and notified to the European Commission under state aid rules before the PEZ 1 tender can be relaunched.
Belgium decided in 2021 to expand the capacity of the Princess Elisabeth offshore wind zone in the North Sea from 1.75 GW to 3.5 GW. The country’s wind capacity reached 5.9 GW as of end-2025 (of which 2.3 GW offshore). It has been progressing slowly since 2020 (0.3 GW/year) (Enerdata Global Energy Research).
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