The additional 2.4 billion budgeted for renewable energy by the new Dutch Rutte II cabinet should be sufficient to realise 16% renewable energy in 2020.
This calls for a balanced development of renewable heat, green gas and renewable electricity. The previous cabinet focused on renewable heat as a cost-effective technique. If the new cabinet is also able to create the right preconditions for deployment of additional wind energy and additional biomass co-firing in coal-fired plants, this would bring the highly ambitious 16% within reach. This will, however, only succeed if the circumstances, such as willingness to invest, are also favourable for all the other techniques.
The Dutch coalition agreement includes the target of generating 16% renewable energy in 2020. This is a very ambitious target, which is higher than target for the Netherlands in the renewable energy directive. The most recent Projections on Energy and Emissions, published by PBL and ECN, showed that the policy of the previous cabinet would lead to 9-12% renewable energy in 2020.
Need
To realise the 16% target, all major techniques in the field of wind energy, solar energy and energy from biomass will need to be deployed. Particularly offshore wind energy will need to experience a stronger growth than anticipated in the policy of the previous cabinet. In addition to the over 3000 MW of existing plans with permits, the Dutch government will thus need to engage in financial commitments with market parties within two years. Wind farms only receive subsidy once they have actually started producing electricity. This will not be realised until 2018. This means that subsidy payments by the SDE scheme will not be made before 2018 either.
Moreover, co-firing of biomass in coal-fired plants will also need to make a significant contribution to realise the 16% renewable energy target. The challenge lies in the profitability of co-firing. A higher obligation may lead to closure of coal-fired plants whereas a subsidy is more non-committal and need not be utilised.
In addition, it is important to anticipate possible barriers in an early stage. Wind farms will need to be connected to the electricity grid on time. On top of this, financial organisations and businesses will need to be able to make capital available on a large scale for long-term investments. Other areas of attention for renewable energy, according to ECN, are the spatial planning policy for wind energy, the difficult economic position of greenhouse horticulture and the uncertainty in the energy market with regard to the implementation of a supplier’s obligation. All these barriers may lead to failure in realising the 16%, despite sufficient financial support from the Dutch government.
[mappress]
Press release, November 01, 2012