Wind power in the Netherlands

As of May 2024^[update], wind power in the Netherlands has an installed capacity of 11,611 MW, 40.9% of which is based offshore.^[1] In 2022, the wind turbines provided the country with 18.37% of its electricity demand during the year.^[2] Windmills have historically played a major part in the Netherlands by providing an alternative to water driven mills.^[3]

In March 2022, the Dutch government announced that by 2030 offshore wind was to become the Netherlands' biggest power source, aiming at 21 GW of installed capacity.^[4]

Since 2015 there has been a trend towards the deployment and planning for large wind farms, both onshore and offshore, with a view to the approximate tripling wind power capacity from 2015 levels by 2023.^[5] The first of these, the 429 MW Noordoostpolder wind farm was already partially deployed by year end 2015 whilst the 600 MW Gemini offshore wind farm was commissioned in 2017. These newer and larger wind farms are making use of some of the largest wind turbines available, in particular in the case of Noordoostpolder the Enercon E-126 7500 kW wind turbine, the largest onshore turbine available at that time. The Netherlands is also well prepared for a significant rise in the production of intermittent power from wind energy by good linkages to its neighbours via high voltage cables enabling power to be imported or exported as required. These include the 580 km NorNed submarine cable (700 MW) link to Norway, the 1,000 MW BritNed cable link to the United Kingdom and the COBRA cable link to Denmark (700 MW).

Many of the numerous smaller and older wind farms in the Netherlands consist of much smaller turbines compared to those typically deployed today. These were often manufactured by lesser known wind turbine manufacturers, sometimes producing innovative products such as the Nedwind 2 blade turbine. Many of these smaller companies were eventually acquired by the larger wind turbine manufactures such as Vestas, Siemens and Lagerwey.