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Copenhagen - Danish offshore wind farm operator Dong Energy is to build two offshore wind farms off the Dutch coast where it has pledged to produce the world's cheapest offshore wind energy.
The projects would be built for €72.70 per megawatt, significantly below the group's 2020 target of bringing costs below €100 p/MW over the life of a project.
"This demonstrates the great potential of offshore wind," said Samuel Leupold, Dong's head of wind power.
The Borssele 1 and 2 wind farms would be build 22km off the Dutch province of Zeeland and would be completed by mid-2020, according to the country's ministry of economic affairs.
"One million households will be provided with electricity generated by the 700MW wind farm off the coast of Borssele," the Dutch government, which will subsidise the project for the first 15 years, said in a statement.
Including the cost of grid connections, experts estimated the price for the projects would be €87 p/MW, which wind industry trade group WindEurope described as being "beyond even the most optimistic expectations in the market.
"It now puts offshore wind in the same cost range as conventional power generation," said WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson.
The previous record was held by Sweden's Vattenfall, which last year won a tender for a wind park off Denmark for €103 p/MW excluding grid connections.
