* Dutch offshore park to generate 700MW
* Government says project is cheapest ever for offshore wind
* Similar tender planned for September (Updates with details, quotes)
By Toby Sterling
THE HAGUE, July 5 (Reuters) - DONG Energy haswon a tender to build two offshore wind farms in the Netherlandswith a capacity of 350 megawatts (MW) each, the country'sEconomic Affairs Ministry said on Tuesday.
DONG Energy, which made its stock market debut in Copenhagenlast month, beat bids from 37 other companies, includingAnglo-Dutch oil group Shell, which had bid inpartnership with Dutch energy supplier Eneco andcontractor Van Oord NV.
German utility RWE had bid with co-investorMacquarie Capital, while Swedish utility Vattenfallentered the race on its own.
DONG's winning bid said it could produce electricity at 7.27euro cents per kilowatt hour, excluding costs to connect to gridoperator TenneT. DONG also said it could produce 22.5 percentmore power than anticipated.
Oliver Joy, a spokesman for industry group Wind Europe, saidthe project's "strike" price of 72.7 euros per MWh was thecheapest ever for a major offshore wind park and it marked a milestone for the industry.
"The target had originally been (to achieve that price)...by 2020, clearly showing the industry is able to do this at aquick rate," he said.
He said that important factors helping the industry toachieve this included the current low price of steel andoversupply in the offshore construction industry.
Dutch economic affairs minister Henk Kamp said the mainreason for the low production price was that the Dutchgovernment had given the bidders guarantees over licensing,legal and environmental issues.
Other factors were low interest rates and competitionbetween turbine vendors, he said at a news conference in TheHague. DONG's bid will save the Dutch government 2.7 billioneuros ($2.99 billion) over 15 years in previously budgetedsubsidy costs, Kamp said.
DONG will build the wind farm, known as Borssele I andBorssele II, by 2020, the Dutch Economic Affairs ministry said.
A second tender for two further sites of the coast ofBorssele, in the far southwest of the Netherlands, is planned inSeptember, making the entire project of 1,370 MW one of thebiggest European offshore wind tenders in the past few years.
A fifth site of 20 MW is reserved for innovation projects.
($1 = 0.9021 euros) (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Writing by Anthony Deutsch;Editing by Ruth Pitchford and Jane Merriman)
