Dutch Grid Over Half Renewable

After relying for decades on drawing oil from the North Sea, the Netherlands is shaking off its fossil fuel legacy. Earlier this year, the Dutch energy grid received more power from renewables than fossil fuels for the first time.

Goliath windmill and modern windturbines, in Eemshaven, the Netherlands. Photo credit: Wikimedia user Uberputser (CC BY-SA 3.0 NL).

It’s appropriate that a nation famed for reclaiming land from the sea found a new way to draw power from the ocean. In latter part of the 20th century, the Netherlands erected offshore oil drills to tap into reserves of oil under the seabed. Now those oil rigs are being sold off while offshore wind turbines rise above the waves. Wind is now cheaper than oil or coal, and major expansions of offshore turbine fields are driving the Netherlands’s push to ditch fossil fuels.

The electricity production from coal has fallen to 3.9 billion kWh.

Furthermore, in the first half of 2024 the renewable sources have increased to 32.3 billion kWh. which represents 53% of Netherland’s output.