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SPOTLIGHT ON THE NETHERLANDS


Netherlands’ low-lying topography. When one-third of your country should be underwater and two-thirds is prone to flooding, sea defence is top of minds. This accounts for the history of dike building and empoldering that goes back to the 14th century and includes the enclosure of the Zuiderzee, in the 1930s, and the near 50-year Delta Works project to protect the land around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta, begun in response to the 1953 North Sea flood.


A VIBRANT SECTOR WITH A DISTINCT PHILOSOPHY The Dutch ocean energy sector is small, vibrant and growing. The EWA has 35 members: 15 industrial partners, 15 knowledge partners and five project developers. They range from large companies through SMEs to start- ups and from tidal, wave and osmotic technologies to OTEC.


Within these technologies, Dutch companies are focusing on devices with a capacity from 50-100KW at the lower end, to 3-4MWe at the upper end and on modular systems to achieve higher installed capacity. “Unlike in other countries, where the focus is on developing huge devices – with huge installation and service costs – the philosophy of the Dutch industry is to start small, learn and grow to the larger devices,” Piet continued. “Small devices cost less to install and operate than big ones further offshore, so we try to go from small to bigger; that’s typically Dutch,” he added.


EXPORT POTENTIAL The other thing the Dutch are doing is thinking about export potential from the outset. With an estimated maximum domestic installed capacity of just 200- 300MWe, there is a clear need to think global as well as local – delta regions and existing and potential storm- surge barriers around the world. The EWA’s slogan, ‘Energising sustainable deltas’, sums up the mindset of EWA. Deltas are typically heavily populated and industrialised, so they need to be protected against storm surge, plus they need structures to manage water and shipping, among other aspects.


“So why not produce the power they need within the delta itself, where you need it, instead of producing it far away in the mountains or out at sea?” stated Piet. In other words, combining storm surge structures with energy production gives you a double win.


ON THE CUSP OF A BIG LEAP FORWARD It’s an appealing concept, but can it be brought to fruition? The Dutch ocean energy industry is tiny in renewables’ terms but the next three to five years promise some huge leaps forward. Ten river runoff projects, five tidal barrier projects, one osmotic energy project and a number of OTEC projects are already running or set to begin. In terms of technological and commercial readiness, most Dutch projects are in the TRL 7-9 range and turbine capacities are in the hundreds of kilowatts to low megawatts. “We have had many studies, but now we are really moving into building projects and having demonstration projects in the Netherlands really could prove the big breakthrough for five or six different devices.


“We have about 40 projects in the pipeline with a total installed capacity of about 50MWe, so we are on the point of breaking through with real devices and results,” Piet concluded.


OPTIMISM The EWA flags up another reason for optimism: a supportive development environment. While subsidies and feed-in tariffs remain thorny issues, the country’s two leading technical universities, TU Delft and TU Eindhoven,


Bird’s-eye view of the Delta


Works storm surge barriers in the province of Zeeland


are world leaders in coastal and marine engineering and mechanical and electrical engineering respectively.


Dutch research organisations TNO and Deltares offer modelling expertise that covers near-field and far-field modelling of estuary currents, and the country boasts mature specialist ship building and marine servicing industries. Plus, the Netherlands has centuries of expertise in land reclamation and dredging.


A WIN FOR PEOPLE AND PLANET If the Dutch focus on combining marine and civil engineering with ocean energy production proves workable at scale, it could help provide secure baseload power where it’s needed, while at the same time protecting vulnerable deltas around the world from rising sea levels. Could we be on the edge of a new Dutch Golden Age?


Dutch Energy from Water Association - EWA


This feature is sponsored by EWA, BT Projects and Tidal Technology Centre Grevelingendam (TTC-GD)


WEBSITE www.wavetidalenergynetwork.co.uk 39


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