Identifying obstacles preventing multi-use in offshore wind farms in relation to licencing in the Netherlands
perspectives and possible solutionsIdentifying obstacles preventing multi-use in offshore wind farms in relation to licencing in the Netherlands
perspectives and possible solutionsSamenvatting
Increased spatial pressures on the marine environment asks for smart use of space in order to safeguard the achievement of environmental, social and economic objectives. Multi-use is seen as a new paradigm for space efficiency and might yield other benefits beyond that. Within the scope of their Policy Document on the North Sea, the Dutch government considers colocation of marine activities within offshore windfarms as a tool for space efficiency, however to date not much practical development has taken place. Licencing procedures play an important role in the realisation of this emerging concept, but rather than delivering access to opportunities the current regulatory system was anticipated to be unsuitable for multi-use assessment. By means of interviews relevant actors, both on behalf of applicants as well as competent authorities, were asked to share their perspectives. Contradicting the initial assumption that the licencing procedure constitutes a major obstacle for the realisation of multi-use, results indicate that underlying issues, partly influencing licencing procedures, are responsible. These issues relate to a lack of concrete objectives, non-existent funding schemes, financial shortfalls on behalf of entrepreneurs, missing visions on future developments, missing assessment framework for multi-use and scaling-up guidelines, uncertainty regarding user priority as well as problematic perceptions and communication issues. In order to propose solutions for these issues, criteria based on obstacles were developed. Selected countries i.e. Belgium, England, Scotland, Denmark and Germany were assessed for their approaches to multi-use as a mean of resolving national obstacles. Based on this analysis, a Dutch stakeholder meeting was organized in which the possible applicability of foreign approaches was discussed. Although it was assumed that national issues could be resolved by means of foreign approaches, results indicate that this is not the case. Reasons for this are that a variety of issues also occur in other countries and that diverging national characteristics e.g. environmental or administrative make their applicability in the Netherlands challenging or not feasible. This study concludes that the financial attractiveness of multi-use including value chains and sales market need to be addressed in order to create incentives for multi-use. Additionally, concrete objectives for non-wind sectors and their integration in cross-sectoral marine planning including long-term strategies have potential to support multi-use realisation. Furthermore, a regulatory framework for multi-use covering several issues such as secondary user allocation, negotiation facilitation between windfarm operator and secondary user, scaling-up as well as communicative aspects, offers the possibility of further streamlining the implementation of multi-use.
Organisatie | Van Hall Larenstein |
Afdeling | Kust en Zee Management |
Partner | Hogeschool Van Hall Larenstein |
Netherlands Enterprise Agency | |
Datum | 2020-02-01 |
Type | Bachelor |
Taal | Engels |