RWE Innogy and Macquarie Capital have made a joint bid to the government of the Netherlands to build two 350 MW offshore wind parks, Borssele 1 and 2, as part of a tender that was announced in May 2015. Other bidders include Vattenfall and a consortium of Shell, Dutch energy group Eneco and contractor Van Oord.
As announced in May 2015, interested companies can hand in separate bids for each of the two 350 MW sites for a maximum feed-in tariff of €12.4c/kWh; they will also receive an electricity basis price of up to €2.9c/kWh, raising the maximum subsidy to €15.3c/kWh. After the expiration of the bid deadline, the Dutch government has 13 weeks to determine the winning bidder. Therefore the award decision is expected at the beginning of July 2016 (possible extension to September 2016).
A second tender is expected between October 2016 and January 2017 and will also focus on the Borssele area; by 2020, about 1.4 GW of offshore wind capacity should be operational off Borssele. The third and fourth tenders are expected in 2017 and 2018 off the coast of South Holland. The fifth tender, off North Holland, is due in 2019. The Netherlands has capped maximum subsidies to be paid for the 2015 tender to €5bn.