By wind farms
The other day, the Danish government presented the first part of its large-scale “climate plan”. It includes a wide variety of directions both in the short and long term, but we are most interested in one part of it.
According to the plan, Denmark intends to build two “energy islands” by 2030. The document said that Denmark will be the first country to move from the paradigm of individual wind farms to energy islands.
Denmark intends to build two “energy islands” by 2030
The essence of the idea is very simple: to turn individual islands into giant wind farms, which will reduce the need for onshore installations of this kind.
Generating at least 4 GW of electricity
The current plan involves the creation of two such islands in the North Sea. The first is the island of Bornholm with an area of 588 km2 with a population of about 40,000 people. It is supposed to create a power plant with a capacity of 2 GW. Another such power station will be built on another island, the name of which is not indicated in the document. Initially, its capacity will be the same 2 GW, but with the prospect of expanding to 10 GW.
For comparison, the largest “single” wind farm is now the Alta Wind Energy Center with a capacity of 1.5 GW, although there is also the Gansu Wind Farm – a complex of power plants in China with a total capacity of almost 8 GW. In general, in the world now there are only four facilities of this kind with a capacity of more than 1 GW, two of which are complexes. So the Danish project is very impressive, although, of course, by 2030 there will clearly be more very powerful wind farms.
It is also worth noting that even 4 GW is more than double the current rate of wind energy production in Denmark.
The “climate plan” has yet to pass parliamentary approval. It is understood that it will be financed both from the state treasury and through private investment, and there will be more second ones. The maximum project cost is 37 billion euros, but this is taking into account the total of 12 GW of power from two power plants.
