Energy island could power all ships and aircraft in Denmark – study

Denmark’s fully-developed energy island in the North Sea could provide enough green fuel to supply all ships and aircraft refueling in Denmark, a study by the country’s Ministry of Climate, Energy and Public Utilities shows.

As reported earlier, Denmark plans to develop two energy islands, one in the Baltic Sea and one in the North Sea.

The artificial island in the North Sea will start at a capacity of 3 GW, which will later be expanded to at least 10 GW of offshore wind capacity, according to the Danish government. The first phase of the project is scheduled to be completed by 2030.

Feasibility studies have started to determine if the energy island could be located in an area at least 60 kilometres west of Thorsminde on Denmark’s west coast.

The final decision on the location of the energy island and the accompanying wind farms is expected by Spring 2021.

A 10 GW North Sea energy island, coupled with electrolyzer plants with a combined capacity of between 5 GW and 15 GW, could provide enough green fuel to cover the needs of the aviation and the shipping industries in Denmark.

“One of the great challenges of the green transition is to reduce emissions in the transport area,” said Denmark’s Minister of Climate, Energy and Public Utilities, Dan Jørgensen.

”With power-to-X we can use the green power to make fuels for planes, ships and trucks. The potential is enormous, especially with Denmark’s large offshore wind resources. That is precisely why we want to build the world’s first two energy islands and PtX plants with a total capacity that is five times as large as the largest plants in the world today.”

Denmark also plans to support the efforts to lower the costs of the power-to-x technologies and to reduce the consumption of energy during the process of electrolysis.

“PtX technologies must go up in scale and down in price. Denmark must take the lead, just as we have done with wind turbine technology. We have a really good starting point and we are strategically working with an overall PtX strategy backed by concrete funding, ” said Jørgensen.