Danes Update Timeline for Kriegers Flak

Following political negotiations between the Danish government and the opposition in the Parliament several amendments that concern the Danish offshore tenders have been made to the cross-party political energy agreement from 2012.

The amendments to the offshore initiatives in the agreement are the following:

• The deadline for the commissioning of the whole of the Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm has been forwarded with two years until the end of 2021. This means developers will have two more years to construct the farm.
• The nearshore tender is reduced from 450 MW to 350 MW (The 50 MW earmarked for demonstration projects remain intact).
• Offshore wind projects closer to the shore are expected to be less expensive to build than larger projects further offshore. Therefore, the near shore tender is now subject to a cap for the acceptable offers of an average maximum price of 0,70 DKK per kWh for 50.000 full load hours for the 350 MW. Offers above the average of 0,70 DKK will – if relevant – be subject to political acceptance.

“With the new agreement a new political certainty has been created for the tenders of the Danish offshore projects. The road is now cleared for the tender procedures to continue in a safe investment climate. For Kriegers Flak the amendment is a clear improvement as it provides the developer with more time to construct the farm. For the near shore tenders the amendment means a reduced capacity and price cap. I am certain though that developers will still consider 350 MW to be quite a sizable project compared to the farms being built today and that bidders will be able to capitalize on the fact that they are allowed to build near shore“ says Katrine Nissen, Head of department , from the DEA.

The aim of the political negotiations has been to cut costs and increase productivity and competitiveness of the country’s businesses while still maintaining the original target of the energy agreement from 2012 of achieving 50 percent of wind energy in the electricity production by 2020.

At the same time the DEA announces amendments to the timeline for the Kriegers Flak bidding procedure. The reason is the delay of the EIA caused by changes to the design of the grid connection by the Danish TSO, Energinet.dk. For the same reason the date of guaranteed grid connection is changed from July 1 2018 to January 1 2019.

“The amendment of the timeline for Kriegers Flak has become unavoidable following the changes to the grid connection concept from Energinet.dk which had to abandon their original plans for a combined grid solution connecting Kriegers Flak to both Germany and Denmark due to unexpected price hikes with respect to the main HVDC components on the platforms. The new grid concept is based on proven AC-technology used already for the grid connection of the Anholt Offshore Wind Farm. This concept necessitates however new pre-investigations on land in the context of the ongoing EIA which also means that we have been forced to adopt a new timeline as the bidding procedure hinges on the completion of the full EIA.”, says Katrine Nissen from the DEA.

Press Release, September 03, 2014; Image: Energinet.dk