Dutch postpone offshore wind farm tenders due to low interest
AMSTERDAM, May 16 (Reuters) - The Netherlands will postpone tenders for two offshore wind farms with a total capacity of 2 gigawatts (GW) due to a lack of interest from potential bidders, the Dutch government said on Friday.
The tenders had originally been planned for September. The government said it would now only open a tender for one location in the North Sea with a capacity of 1 GW then.
The Dutch Climate ministry said in March that interest for the three sites it wanted to tender was very low, after energy firms Eneco and Orsted (ORSTED.CO), opens new tab had said they saw no viable business case without subsidies.
The government said it was still looking into ways to reintroduce subsidies in its tenders for offshore wind farms, as prospective bidders are backing out of the current "zero subsidy" model.
Climate minister Sophie Hermans said detailed plans for the future tenders would be presented by the third quarter, after having missed her earlier announced mid-April deadline.
The Netherlands last year pushed back plans to increase offshore wind capacity from 4.7 GW to 21 GW to the end of 2032 instead of 2030, citing costs, supply chain difficulties and "challenges in timely decision-making".
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Four former Monte Paschi executives to stand trial in bad loans case
MILAN, June 6 (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ordered four former executives of bank Monte dei Paschi di Siena ( opens new tab to stand trial for alleged false accounting in 2015 and the first half of 2016 over the classification of impaired loans, judicial and legal sources said on Friday. Former presidents Alessandro Profumo and Massimo Tononi, former CEO Fabrizio Viola, and ex-accounting manager Arturo Betunio are set to face charges of false accounting and market manipulation at a Milan court on Oct. 16. Lawyers for the four did not immediately respond to requests for comment, but all have consistently denied wrongdoing. The case marks the latest development in a series of legal proceedings linked to the troubled Tuscan lender's 2017 rescue. Milan prosecutors have alleged that false accounting from 2014 to 2017 was used to obscure the bank's insolvency, which would have blocked its state bailout, according to judicial documents. Milan judge Fiammetta Modica on Friday cleared five other MPS executives, including former presidents Alessandro Falciai and Stefania Bariatti, and former CEO Marco Morelli, of all charges related to the other years under investigations. Prosecutors had previously requested no proceedings for these periods. The alleged offence relates to the misclassification of loans as "performing" rather than "impaired". Italy pumped 5.4 billion euros ($6.15 billion) into MPS in 2017 under a so-called precautionary recapitalisation. Under European Union rules, this applies only to viable companies, so that public money is not used to cover any actual or expected losses. The European Central Bank conducted a health check on MPS at the time to unlock state aid in compliance with EU competition rules. Italy's Treasury negotiated the bailout terms with the European Commission and eventually committed to reducing its stake in the bank, which after the bailout stood at 68%. Under CEO Luigi Lovaglio, the bank has restructured, benefiting from higher interest rates and lower costs. Lovaglio raised 2.5 billion euros in late 2022 to fund redundancies. In October 2023 Italy's Supreme Court confirmed an appeals court's ruling that overturned a previous verdict and acquitted all defendants of charges related to derivatives deals that prosecutors alleged had helped MPS hide losses. In December 2023, MPS's former CEO and chairman were also acquitted on appeal, after serving six years in prison in a related case. The verdict was upheld by Italy's Supreme Court in February 2025. ($1 = 0.8776 euros)
The Independent
an hour ago
- The Independent
Ange Postecoglou departs Tottenham in glory but sacking him was the logical choice
He will always have Bilbao. The manager who, in his forties, was in charge of Whittlesea Zebras in the Melbourne suburbs won a European trophy 16 years later. No other manager has had a journey quite like Ange Postecoglou 's. But then no one has had a season the same as Tottenham's, the club who recorded the lowest ever league finish of any side to lift continental silverware. It was why the emotional choice would have been to keep Postecoglou. The rational one, delivered 16 days after Europa League glory, was to dismiss him. 'One of the toughest decisions we have had to make,' Spurs said in their explanation, and easy a target as chairman Daniel Levy can be, he merits some understanding in this instance. Postecoglou ended a 17-year wait for a major honour and dragged Tottenham to a historic low. The impression in his heady first few months was that he was a manager who brought back the Spurs way. Tottenham's traditions involved being a cup team; but never this much of one, never as hopeless in the league. The ignominy of coming 17th could only partly be explained by a focus on Europe; they were 13th domestically even before playing a knockout tie in the continental competition. The probability is that any successor – and Thomas Frank is the frontrunner – will finish higher in the table but not win anything. Postecoglou's bravado in saying he always won something in his second season was justified and he called his sophomore year with Spurs 'outstanding'; but it also stood out for many a wrong reason. Tottenham have never lost more league games in a campaign. Their 22 defeats included 10 on home soil; the supporters who pay for famously expensive tickets even saw Ipswich and Leicester win in N17. Their tally of 38 points was – if three were awarded for a victory in every season – Spurs' lowest since 1914-15. It was underachievement on an extraordinary scale, given what is probably the seventh biggest wage bill, a gifted group of players and, despite Levy's famous frugality, an outlay on transfers of around £400m over the last couple of years. Feat as it was to claim European silverware, especially in the context of Tottenham's inability to win anything since 2008, it only required one remarkable result, the away win over Eintracht Frankfurt in the quarter-finals. Even the final was against a Manchester United team who came 15th in England. So Tottenham had to conduct an assessment of Postecoglou's reign and the whole season. They cited his record over the 66 league games that followed the heady beginning of the first 10 that produced 26 points and a table-topping start. Those 66 matches produced just 78 points, an average of just 1.18 per game. Of the 17 clubs in the division throughout that time, only Wolves took fewer points, and by a mere one. Spurs conceded 116 goals in that time, 1.76 per match. It underlined a design flaw in Angeball: an openness to the counter-attack. The warning signs were there in his debut campaign when, individually, the first-choice back four and goalkeeper all had fine seasons and yet Spurs were breached 61 times. When Angeball was at its best it was brilliant; the 4-0 evisceration of Manchester City this season was football at a very high level. Yet there was not a consistent formula to win games. He was not the first managerial import to struggle against the Premier League 's middle-ranking clubs, to discover its strength in depth. Postecoglou also had other issues. He was irritated by suggestions his training and tactics injured his players but Tottenham struggled to compete on multiple fronts; they won the Europa League by sparing Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven Premier League duties. But, again, that blueprint scarcely felt repeatable as they enter a Champions League season. Tottenham's league form, ultimately, was impossible to justify. Postecoglou instead seemed to believe that his were the only team to suffer from injuries, as though everyone else could be judged by their results, but Spurs should not be. There were the car-crash post-match interviews of a manager who seemed to regard questioning of his methods and style of play as illegitimate. On a personal level, he nevertheless merits considerable sympathy. The Europa League gives him a place in history: the third Tottenham manager, alongside the great Bill Nicholson and Keith Burkinshaw, to win European silverware, the first Australian coach to do so with any club. He released a dignified statement on his departure. 'My overriding emotion is one of pride,' he said. But one of the questions his employers had to answer was whether it would be substantially different if they persevered with Postecoglou for another year. To reframe it, and despite the Europa League, would another Premier League club appoint Postecoglou now? After all, if he took Tottenham to 17th, logic may dictate he could relegate a mid-table club. If many a managerial appointment is the opposite the previous one, it is notable those who have seemed on Spurs' radar – Andoni Iraola, Marco Silva, Oliver Glasner and Frank – have found ways to get results with lesser resources in England, to punch above their weight with the mid-table teams. But as he goes, Postecoglou can argue he was the antithesis of managers like Mauricio Pochettino, Jose Mourinho and Antonio Conte. Because none of them took a trophy to Tottenham. And he did.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
Manchester United consider making second bid for Bryan Mbeumo
Manchester United will be disciplined with their investment this summer as they weigh up making a second bid for the Brentford forward Bryan Mbeumo. The club have already signed Matheus Cunha from Wolverhampton Wanderers for £62.5million and are looking to further strengthen Ruben Amorim's squad, despite having a tight budget to keep within the Premier League's Profitability and Sustainability Rules. United had an initial bid of £55million (£45million plus £10million in add-ons) rejected for Mbeumo, 25, and are considering an improved offer, but sources said they will not look to repeatedly up their bid for a player who has a £60million asking price, having scored 20 goals in 38 Premier League games this season. The discussions over Mbeumo come as their latest financial figures, for the third quarter, were released on Friday afternoon. Part of those figures showed how a lack of Champions League football had saved United nearly £20million on their wage bill, which sources said gave them headroom to be able to spend this summer. The accounts showed a decrease of 21.9 per cent in employee operating costs from the previous quarter. That is partly down to restructuring, which has resulted in 200 staff being made redundant, but is mainly due to the fact that the club were in the Europa League and not the Champions League, which has saved them millions in player wages. Loaning out Marcus Rashford, and Aston Villa covering the majority of his £300,000-a-week salary, also helped. With no European football at all next season, those savings should further increase in the next set of financial results. Being in the Champions League would have earned them more revenue than the Europa League, but each player would have had a 25 per cent increase in salary, due to a clause in their contracts, which would have eaten into a lot of that extra income. That £20million saving in wages contributed to a small operating profit of £700,000, compared with a loss of £66.2million 12 months ago. This is, club sources say, evidence that 'difficult decisions' that were made around redundancies are now having a positive impact. The board are backing their Portuguese head coach this summer as he looks to make improvements in his first full campaign in charge after United's worst season in Premier League history. What next season will look like nobody knows. Ordinarily finishing in the top four is a minimum requirement and Amorim, whose side finished 15th, has already admitted that it would be unrealistic to expect United to be competing for the title. But the club's chief executive, Omar Berrada, has refused to set a target for the men's team next season, despite admitting there was a need for 'improvement'. 'We were proud to reach the final of the Europa League, but ultimately, we were disappointed to finish as runner-up in [the final in] Bilbao,' Berrada said. 'We had a difficult season in the Premier League, which we all know fell below our standards, and we have a clear expectation of improvement next season.'
