Denmark will build its biggest offshore wind turbine park by 2012 with a capacity to supply power to 16 percent of the country's homes.
The 400-megawatt park will be located off the coast of Djursland in western Denmark and will “soon'' be offered in a tender to offshore wind operators, the Copenhagen-based Energy and Climate Ministry said today. The park will supply power to 400,000 homes, or twice as many as Horn Rev 2, which will be the biggest when it starts operating next year.
The Nordic country aims to increase renewable-energy output to 20 percent of consumption by 2011 as the country prepares to host the 2009 United Nations climate convention, where the European Union will push for bigger cuts to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
“Denmark will expand its very strong position on sea-based windmills over the next four years,'' Climate Minister Connie Hedegaard said in a statement. The decision on the park was backed by parties representing more than 90 percent of the national parliament's lawmakers, the ministry said.
Cost
Dong Energy A/S, the world's largest offshore wind operator, may bid for the park, Chief Executive Officer Anders Eldrup said in an Aug. 6 interview after press reports on the project.
Dong, based in Skaerbeak, Denmark and E.ON AG of Dusseldorf, Germany, last month bought Royal Dutch Shell Plc's stake in London Array, a planned 1,000 megawatt development of as many as 341 turbines off the southeast coast of Britain, after Shell said offshore wind costs had become too high.
The new Danish park will consists of 100 to 175 windmills depending on their size. The ministry didn't disclose the expected price for the project. Analysts, including Kitty Groen at Svenska Handelsbanken AB in Copenhagen, estimate that mills cost at least 1 million euros per megawatt, which would value the project at more than 400 million euros ($592 million).
