Denmark Probing New Offshore Wind Sites

The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has contracted COWI A/S to screen parts of the North and Baltic Seas to find new potential locations for offshore wind farms to be built.

COWI is in charge of investigating an area of more than 3,200km2 to identify possible different locations for offshore wind projects in the four sites the Danish Energy Agency marked as having relevant potential.

The screening will include discovering which areas are most attractive in terms of obtaining the lowest bid price, as well as whether they should be part of a single tender to increase competition between bidders and territories or whether only a single area will be offered, DEA said.

The Lyngby-based company is expected to complete the work by the end of the year

According to DEA, the screening is an important step towards the development of the plans to build an 800MW offshore wind farm by mid-2020s.

The Danish parliament recently unanimously voted for a new energy agreement which includes building three new offshore wind projects by 2030 with a total capacity of at least 2.4GW.

Four areas were selected as having the potential for accommodating offshore wind farms, including a site in the North Sea off the Jutland west coast, one in Jammerbugt, one at Kriegers Flak and one at Hesselø.

Three of the sites, including the one for the 800MW project, are located within the areas reserved for offshore wind farms in 2012. However, the area north of Hesselø has not previously been designated as an area for offshore wind. It is reserved in a parallel process and will subsequently have to undergo an environmental assessment.