Offshore wind farms will have to repay excess profits

Offshore wind farms that make excessive profits due to historically high electricity prices will have to repay those profits. An amendment to this of a Royal Decree is being prepared. That is what the federal energy regulator Creg said on Tuesday in the House Energy Committee.

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Due to the historically high prices for natural gas and electricity, the government is looking at the extent to which it can return excess profits or exceptional profits to consumers. In that case, the operators of gas-fired power stations and nuclear power stations will be looked at in the first instance. But other players in the market are also eligible, according to the federal energy regulator Creg: for example, the Coo hydroelectric power station and the offshore wind farms.

In concrete terms, this concerns the five most recent wind farms that have been built off the Belgian coast. They enjoy variable support. Aid is paid out if the electricity price on the market is below the production costs of the park. This allows the parks to achieve a certain return. But if the electricity prices on the market – as is the case today – are very high, then the profit is much higher than the agreed return. In that case, those parks would have to pay the government.

However, this repayment is not included in the existing royal decree, according to the Creg. ‘We are discussing this with the parks. But the royal decree must be amended. That would happen in the coming months,” said Creg director Laurent Jacquet.

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