Denmark Pioneers Vast Expansion of Wind Power via Two Energy Islands

Grid Talk

Two Danish islands will serve as hubs of massive new offshore wind turbines to serve itself and neighboring countries and spur development of clean hydrogen green fuel for aircraft and factories. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg talks with Hanne Storm Edlefsen who is the vice president of Energy Islands, a project of the Energinet transmission system operator in Denmark.

One complex will be on Bornholm Island in the Baltic and link up 3,000 megawatts of wind power, simplifying the collection of the power and its transmission to land. The second complex will be on a new island to be built in the North Sea.

“Well out in the North Sea, we’re going to build an artificial island so that’s a whole other project. This is supposed to be finished in 2033 as the plans are now. It will be in the beginning three or four gigawatts of offshore wind which is to be decided by Parliament within the next couple of months, but the ambition is actually that later there will be added even more gigawatts so the artificial island in the North Sea will end on 10 gigawatts which is so much electricity,” said Edlefsen.

Wind power provides half of Denmark’s electricity, and the goal is to increase it by 80% by 2024.

“It definitely takes some braveness from the politicians to start these projects where a lot of the technology is still new or untested when they are taking the decisions,” she said.

Hanne Storm Edlefsen has been with Energinet for 11 years. Energinet owns, operates, and develops the transmission grids for Danish electricity and gas supply. Her work focuses on sector coupling and large-scale renewables.

Edlefsen has a master’s degree in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen.