Hesselø project in need of environmental consultancy services

Danish transmission system operator Energinet has issued a contract notice seeking environmental engineering consultancy services for the Hesselø offshore wind project.

In June 2020, the Danish Parliament decided to commence the development of the Hesselø offshore wind farm. This is the second of the three offshore wind farms proposed in the Energy Agreement 2018, the first being Thor.

The wind farm has since been subject to screening studies. The Danish Energy Agency has instructed Energinet to initiate site investigations, environmental, and metocean studies, and analysis for grid connection for the area of investigation.

The current tender concerns consultancy services for preparing environmental assessments, planning consents, and marine environmental baseline investigations for offshore wind projects in Denmark. It covers a strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and environmental investigations for the project.

The contract is valued at € 2 million and will have a duration of 24 months. Interested parties have until 24 September to submit their bids.

The Project

The Hesselø wind farm is located north of Sealand in Kattegat, in Hesselø Bay, at a distance of 30 kilometres from Sealand and around 20 kilometres from the Hesselø island.

Initially, Hesselø was scheduled for commissioning in 2028, but according to the recently approved Climate Action Plan, both Hesselø and Thor will be commissioned in 2027.

Denmark plans to start the tendering procedure for the development of the wind farm in 2021 and select the winner in 2022.

The wind farm will have an installed capacity of between 800 MW and 1,200 MW and can thus potentially become the largest offshore wind farm in Denmark, depending on the capacity that the winner of the tender chooses to install.