How the Dutch can help Australia fast-track offshore wind

Getting offshore wind right is not a waiting game, it’s a matter of design, says the Netherlands Enterprise Agency’s (RVO) Henk van Elburg.

And when it comes to designing for delivery, the Netherlands may just be one of Australia’s most valuable long-term collaborators.

van Elburg, who is the Senior Program Manager for the RVO’s International Clean Energy Partnership, says the Dutch model, built on public-private cooperation, pragmatic de-risking, and policy reform, may hold lessons for Australia.

After learning the hard way that developers need more support than a blank slate and a green light, the Netherlands now has a flourishing offshore wind sector, as well as the supporting industries that make it work.

“We’re not saying we’re the good guys who know it all,” van Elburg said during an interview at this year’s Australia Wind Energy 2025 (AuWE) conference in Melbourne.

“We lost precious time before 2013 ourselves. But we did one thing right: we stopped, scrapped the old policy, and rebuilt from scratch, with developers, not for them.”

From policy pain to pragmatic progress

The Netherlands pivoted to offshore wind out of necessity.

The European Union was adding financial sticks to encourage countries to green their power suppliers, but the real breakthrough came when the Dutch government made offshore wind the “driver’s seat” of its energy transition.

They streamlined permitting, undertook site research centrally through the RVO, and created a repeatable model that de-risks investment and slashes project timelines, van Elburg says.

Instead of asking developers to scout sites and bear early-stage risk, the Dutch government identifies zones and surveys pre-designated sites, does environmental and geotechnical assessments, and even prepares the permits.

“In the Netherlands, you do not tender for an offshore wind farm. You tender for a permit to construct and operate an offshore wind farm,” van Elburg says.

“A single developer doing site research might spend more than €10 million. If 15 developers do that separately, it’s wasteful.

“We do it once, properly, and recoup the cost from the winning bidder. Everyone’s happy, even those who don’t win because they didn’t lose millions just to participate.”

That model allowed the government to issue wind farm permits with no subsidy.

It’s a model that allows the Netherlands to deliver offshore wind projects in three to four years instead of up to a decade.

“Again, the central execution of research in pre-designated sites by us bought us that time,” van Elburg says.

Why the Dutch supply chain matters

Unlike Denmark or Germany, the Netherlands doesn’t make offshore wind turbines nor does it have many homegrown developers.

What it does have is an advanced supply chain and a services industry set up to deliver offshore construction, marine logistics, and subsea engineering.

“We don’t develop offshore wind farms, we build and maintain them,” van Elburg says.

“Our companies do the soil assessments, monopile installation, drone surveys, you name it.”

Names like Fugro and Haskoning are already active in Australia, but many others are looking to set up shop. For a country just beginning to build its offshore capability, via the first declared offshore wind zone in Gippsland where 11 projects of 23 gigawatts of capacity are currently building a case for permits, this is a ready-made talent pipeline.

“Dutch businesses see something is happening here. The time feels right. There’s demand not just for construction, but for the project management expertise to navigate complex permitting and delivery,” van Elburg says.

But RVO and the Dutch delegation’s active participation at AuWE was to seek out partners in the emerging industry in Australia.

The event as a platform for bilateral energy collaboration was on show, with those offshore wind services companies actively making Aussie connections on the exhibition room floor.

A public-private engine that keeps turning

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Dutch approach is how scalable and self-reinforcing it is.

By taking on early costs and risks, the government accelerated delivery, which in turn built investor confidence, attracted bidders into later auctions, and allowed the state to open another block for development.

“We start preparing the next tender round years before the current roadmap ends,” van Elburg says. “That’s how we keep the machine turning — year after year.”

That machine is underpinned by the Dutch grid operator, TenneT, which builds offshore substations and manages grid connections, another factor that removes uncertainty for developers and frees them to focus on price.

“We want developers to think about just one thing: price. Not permits. Not grid. Not researching site data. Just price,” van Elburg says.

Lessons for Australia

Australia’s model includes some elements of the new Dutch experience: there are designated zones and in Victoria onshore grid connections are handled by state-owned VicGrid.

But compared to the Dutch approach, Australia is still expecting developers to do the heavy lifting in site research, winning social licence, organising the offshore cables and substations, preparing the data showing where turbines will go and environmental studies.

The message from van Elburg is that a switch from a developer-led to a government-led system worked for the Netherlands.

“We didn’t get everything right at first. But now we have a system and we’d like to help Australia build one too.”

The dialogue around global cooperation and policy innovation will carry on at Australia Wind Energy 2026, which will return to MCEC Melbourne in 8-9 July next year.

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This is a paid sponsored article brought to you by Leader Associates.