Offshore Wind Worldwide 2022 edition - Flipbook - Page 177
Offshore Wind Worldwide 2022
VI. Real estate
A. Rights over land to be secured
A seabed lease (“recht van opstal”) has to be
established between the wind farm operator
and the Dutch government. Apart from the
seabed lease for the wind turbines, a rental
agreement for the infield cabling between
the wind turbines and the TenneT platform
has to be signed.
In recent tenders, the Central Government
Real Estate Agency calculated the costs for
the right to the seabed lease at the sites in
question, based on a rate of EUR 0.98 per
MWh every year, using a fixed total capacity
of 0.7 GW and 4,000 full-load hours. The
payment is fixed and independent of the
final actual installed capacity or output from
the wind farms and is only required for the
part of the wind farm within the 12 miles
zone. Annual payments will be required four
years after the permits have become
irrevocable and will be indexed for the
period of operation.
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In addition, from the moment the permit is
awarded, up to the moment of the full
payment, a reservation fee has to be paid for
the part of the site within the 12 miles zone.
These payments (indexed) will also be
required for the period from when the wind
farm ceases operation until it has been fully
decommissioned and removed.
B. Costs and risks of legal challenges
In general there is no risk regarding possible
successful challenges to the right to use the
land. As explained above, within the Dutch
territory, the right to use the land is included
in the planning and tender approval which
becomes final and binding upon expiry of
the respective objection periods, or the final
rejection of any objections.