Danish firm Dong Energy has been successful in its bid to construct two offshore wind farms off the Dutch coast, which experts in the industry claim will be the cheapest projects of their kind.

The schemes will be constructed for 72.70 Euros per megawatt hour, which is considerably beneath the 103 Euro MWh record which was set in 2015 by Swedish firm Vattenfall for a scheme off Denmark’s coast.

A spokesman for the wind industry trade group, WindEurope, Oliver Joy commented: “This is the cheapest we’ve ever seen by a long way and it puts offshore wind on a par with what it costs to build a new coal or gas power station.”

Dong is the biggest offshore wind developer in the world, and this latest deal does not include the price of transmission cables and equipment that will link the scheme to onshore power networks.

However, executives in the wind industry said that adding in these costs would still leave the project cost at around 87 Euros MWh.

Over the life of the project, Dong had set a cost target of 100 Euros MWh in four years’ time and says it is pleased to have already met its goal.

Dong’s Head of Wind Power, Samuel Leupold, said: ““We are reaching a critical industry milestone more than three years ahead of time. This demonstrates the great potential of offshore wind.”

There were various factors that contributed to the Dutch deal, which will result in the construction of two find farms built just over 20km off the coast of Zeeland, a Dutch province.

The cheaper cost of capital available in the Netherlands helped with the low cost, along with the relatively cheap cost of the steel used to construct offshore wind turbines.

Leupold added that the firm has reached a significant milestone three years ahead of schedule and shows the huge potential of offshore wind.