b'3.8 Port of Eemshaven shows the profit in going greenMatt Miller, AJOT The far northern Netherlands port of Eemshaven has ridden to great This article was originally published on November 25, 2019 in issue #698 success the rapid rise of offshore wind development and concurrent electricity generation. Eemshaven now boasts of launching 16 North Sea wind farms, plus another four with a contract for operations and maintenance. It also hosts one of the countrys largest onshore wind parks, a 213MW complex.Some 70% of the ports business is now wind-related, estimated Erik Bertholet, the port of Eemshavens business manager for offshore wind.One-third of all energy produced in the Netherlands now comes from Eemshaven, with its three large power stations, although by no means is that all wind-generated. A high-capacity submarine cable linking the Netherlands and Britain reaches landfall at Eemshaven.The availability of plentiful renewable energy is one big reason why, for example, Google located an immense data center nearby, invest-If you have big wind farms, you can directly lead it with the grid to your location, ing more than 1 billion Euros, with a further expansion recently an-nounced. (It can rightly say the energy is non-fossil fuel, since 69MW of wind-produced electricity is generated directly to the center.) Rival QTS also located its mega data center in Eemshaven.If you have big wind farms, you can directly lead it with the grid to your location, explained Bertholet.Not only do these centers require huge amounts of electricity, they [image 3.8] next page need reliable sourcing and speed. Two electric grids radiate from Eem-Aerial view of Port of Eemshaven shaven to the Netherlands and elsewhere in Europe, insuring both re-dundancy and latency.Hard to believe all this has happened only over the past decade. Eem-shaven demonstrates how economic gains can be generated through hitching itself to a green future.58 THE UNCONTAINED www.theuncontained.com'