Parliament OKs three wind farms on North Sea

The Tweede Kamer - lower house of parliament - does not see any insurmountable problems with Minister Henk Kamp's (Economic Affairs) plans to build three large wind farms on the North Sea. The Kamer has given the go-ahead for the construction, NOS reports.

The wind farms will be located between 18 and 22 kilometers off the coast of Noord-Holland, Zuid-Holland and Zeeland. The construction of the first farm off the coast of Zeeland may start this year. The wind farms off the coast of Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland will be built in a few years time.

A large number of coastal municipalities are very much against Kamp's plans to build these wind farms. According to the newspaper, they feel that the 200 meter high windmills will ruin the view. A meeting of the councilors of Noordwijk, Zandvoort and Katwijk had to be cancelled earlier this month, because the municipalities felt that the information on the wind farms had to be shared with all stakeholders and refused to keep it secret.

The Energy Agreement signed in 2013 states that 3450 megawatts of extra energy has to be generated by wind turbines in the North Sea by 2022. 14 percent of the energy in the Netherlands has to be sustainable energy by then. In October last year the "National Energy Outlook" presented by the Plan Bureau for the Environment (PBL) and the Energy research Center of the Netherlands (ECN) stated that these targets may be impossible to reach.