Two substantial offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of 1GW will be available for tender later this year, the Danish government has announced.
The Danish Energy Agency will present preliminary findings of geophysical surveys next week at the European Wind Energy Association conference in Vienna.
Last year, the Danish government agreed that 400MW Horns Rev 3 and 600MW Kriegers Flak 3 offshore wind farms need to be built by 2020 to help achieve the country's target of wind energy supplying 50% of Denmark's electricity demand by the end of the decade. Tenders for a total of 500MW in new near-shore capacity are also on the horizon.
The award of development rights for Horns Rev 3 is due in early 2015. Last autumn, Vattenfall confirmed to Windpower Offshore that it is interested in bidding for the project. Vattenfall already owns 60% of 160MW Horns Rev 1 and has its European wind energy asset monitoring centre at the nearby port of Esbjerg.
The tendering process for Kriegers Flak - and for the near-shore projects - should be completed by the end of 2015, although geophysical data will not be available until late 2014. All projects are earmarked for full commissioning by 2020.
Danish authorities are keen to attract multiple bids for each project and to avoid the situation that arose with 400MW Anholt, currently under construction, which received just one bid from Dong Energy.
National electricity transmission system operator, Energinet.dk, has undertaken geophysical surveys at both sites as part of efforts to swiftly move the two new projects to the construction phase. Full results will be published by the end of March.
