Energinet Awards EUR 19.8 Million in Contracts for Studies of Denmark’s New Offshore Wind Areas

July 12, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

Danish transmission system operator (TSO) Energinet has awarded several contracts for surveys and studies for Denmark’s new offshore wind areas. Valued at a total of EUR 19.8 million, the contracts secured by GEO.xyz, WSP Danmark, DNV, and LiveLink Aerospace include cable route surveys, consultancy services for a number of marine environmental studies, and radar analysis.

GEO.xyz will undertake surveys of the expected offshore export cable routes for projects planned in the areas designated for offshore wind development in the Danish North Sea, Kattegat and the Danish Baltic Sea. The company, under a contract worth a little over EUR 15 million, will perform geophysical surveys, shallow geotechnical investigations, and crossing surveys of existing utilities.

WSP Danmark and DNV will provide consultancy services for a number of marine environmental studies Energinet will carry out for the planned areas, as instructed by the Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities last year following the climate agreement in June 2022.

The tender won by WSP Danmark concerns the provision of consultancy services for environmental studies for the North Sea areas. The contract, valued at EUR 2.6 million, also includes the option to undertake marine environmental investigations for Area 2 for North Sea I starting in early 2024.

DNV will provide these services for the planned areas in Kattegat and the western Baltic Sea under a EUR 1.1 million contract.

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Energinet also plans to assess the impact of the future offshore wind farms on the Ministry of Defence’s radar.

For this purpose, the TSO has signed up LiveLink Aerospace with a EUR 1 million contract to perform an analysis to investigate the extent of the impact and the resulting consequences for the Defence’s ability to carry out assigned authority tasks. Based on the analysis results, the Defence will determine the need for any necessary mitigation measures as well as an associated cost estimate, which can then be incorporated into the Danish Energy Agency’s tender materials.

LiveLink Aerospace will analyse the impact on radars for the Hesselø South site, Kriegers Flak II North and Kriegers Flak II South, and for the areas in Kattegat and the North Sea, as well as for the offshore wind farms planned to be built near the Energy Island Bornholm.

As reported recently, the upcoming tenders in Denmark could bring the country much more offshore wind capacity than initially planned, as the procurement will also allow for a so-called overplanting.

This implies installing more offshore wind capacity at the tendered locations than what was agreed in the climate agreement and other political agreements, and could lead to as much as 14 GW of new generation capacity if implemented at all the tendered areas.

Projects at North Sea I, Kriegers Flak II and Kattegat II have the full green light for overplanting, while at Hesselø and Energy Island Bornholm only a more limited overplanting can be permitted: up to a total capacity of 1.2 GW for Hesselø and up to 3.8 GW for Energy Island Bornholm.

The Danish Energy Agency is expected to publish the final tender material at the end of this year or early next year, with the deadline for bids for North Sea I, Hesselø and Energy Island Bornholm anticipated to be set sometime at the end of 2024, and for Kattegat II and Kriegers Flak II in the first half of 2025.