In April 2009, the first 6 wind turbines of the C-Power offshore wind farm started producing the first sparks of green electricity from the Belgian North Sea. The sixth wind farm, Norther, began producing electricity in 2019, bringing the total production capacity to 1556 MW. Belgium has thus become the fifth largest offshore wind energy producer in the world after the United Kingdom, China, Germany and Denmark. On the basis of the ratio between production capacity and the number of inhabitants, Belgium is even in the top 3 of offshore wind energy, after the United Kingdom and Denmark.

Accelerated deployment in 2019

Offshore wind energy is an important building block of a sustainable energy transition. With the commissioning of the wind farms Rentel (309 MW) in 2018 and Norther (370 MW) in 2019, and the construction of Northwester 2 (219 MW) and SeaMade (487 MW), wind energy in the Belgian North Sea is gaining ground.

A year ago, we celebrated the milestone of 1 million families supplied with green electricity from the Belgian part of the North Sea. From this summer onwards, 1,600,000 families are already supplied by offshore wind energy. And by 2020, offshore wind energy will supply green electricity to 2,300,000 families, or about half of all Belgian families.

Offshore wind energy will then reach an installed capacity of 2,262 MW and an average production of 8 TWh per year, which represents about 10% of the total electricity demand. But it doesn’t stop there: by 2025 the capacity could double to provide about 20% of the electricity consumption.

Unique aerial images of Belgian wind farms in 2019

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of offshore wind power in Belgium, the BOP has gathered unique aerial images of the six operational wind farms in the Belgian North Sea in a short video. This way, every Belgian can see what is already happening in the North Sea today.

If you want to test your knowledge of offshore wind energy in Belgium, you can take the online quiz.

Would you like to know more about wind energy in the Belgian North Sea? Watch this video for more information: