British oil and gas giant bp announced that it had submitted bids for two offshore wind leases in the Netherlands, which together have a capacity of 1.4GW.

Hollandse Kust (west) Wind Farm Zone (HKW) sites VI and VII have been bid on by bp in the tender process. Two wind farms are located in HKW, approximately 53 kilometers off the country’s west coast, and total 176 square kilometers in area.

The bidding process for Site VI will be evaluated on the basis of eco-innovation criteria, in which bp proposes creating innovative solutions to enhance the Dutch North Sea ecosystem.

The bid includes unprecedented levels of innovation, including nearly €75 million for the development of technologies that have a positive impact on the marine habitat, the dissemination of advanced ecosystem data analysis, and the establishment of a new Dutch Northwest Wind Ecological Innovation Hub to enable further research and collaboration.

System integration criteria will be used to evaluate Site VII bids, and bp’s bid focuses on combining offshore wind power generation with new, flexible demand in the Rotterdam region.

The bid proposes that the wind farms will be integrated with a 500MW electrolysis facility that will produce 50,000 tonnes of green hydrogen each year a new electric boiler and super heater for bp’s Rotterdam refinery. This is in addition to a utility-scale battery to support the integration of the assets as well as flexible charging stations for electric vehicles with integrated batteries and multi-energy logistics hubs with low carbon footprints.

In addition to the offshore wind project, bp expects to invest up to €2 billion in the decarbonization of flexible demand.