Danish Offshore windfarms get a good report and plan for expansion

Dong Energy ( a Danish consortium formed this year from DONG, Elsam, ENERGI E2, Nesa, Copenhagen Energy’s power activities and Frederiksberg Forsyning) and the Swedish energy combine Vattenfall run the Danish Horns Rev and Nysted offshore wind farms and have completed an 8 year, 144 page year environemntal impact study (PDF Alert / English),in conjunction with the Danish Energy Authority and Danish Forest and Nature Agency.The publication can be also ordered from the Danish Energy Authority’s Internet bookstore ISBN: 87-7844-625-2.

This was released this week at the Final Results: The Danish Monitoring Programme conference held in Denmark , the report also contains commentary from the International Advisory Panel of Experts on Marine Ecology, which gave the report a positive evaluation.. The report confirms that both the Horns Rev and Nysted offshore wind farms will be doubled in size in the coming years.

The final chapter on the economics of wind power both on and off shore is most revealing ..

Offshore the availability of the small nearshore farms is also high, but in 2004 the availability for Horns Rev was low due to a comprehensive repair of the gears and transformers on all the Vestas turbines. However, in 2005 all turbines operated nearly 100% with an availability of 95%, where as the Siemens (Bonus) turbines at Nysted reached 97%.

.Which confirms the problems Vestas have been experiencing in design , manufacture and maintenance of their devices (see Lord Patel many previous posts) .. and an intersting way of comparing investment costs ..

.....with an expected electricity production output of approx 12,000 MWh per year for a 3 MW offshore wind turbine,the wind turbine will generate the equivalent amount of energy needed for manufacture, transport and operation of the wind turbine in approx eight months.

Expansion is now in train and In June 2005, DONG Energy,was chosen to build a 200 MW off shore wind farm at Horns Rev 2. The price has been set at approx EUR 0.069/kWh fixed for 50,000 full-load hours, which corresponds to approx twelve years’ electricity production. The farm will commence operation in 2009.

A consortium of DONG Energy and E.ON Sweden was appointed to build a new farm at Rødsand on 6 April 2006. The tender submitted off ered the lowest kWh price of approx EUR 0.066/kWh fixed for 50,000 full-load hours.

Both of these sites will each provide some 2% each of Denmark's load and help towards the national goal of 50% renewable energy by 2025.

Perhaps most interesting in the light of the announced increase in gas and electricity charges in the UK for infrastructure / pipeline , grid networks yesterday is the observation ...

It is envisaged that bottlenecks will be created if the transmission grid is not reinforced when the Horns Rev 2 and Rødsand 2 off shore wind farms are grid connected in these areas by 2009/2010. Such bottlenecks can limit the possibilities for fully exploiting wind power. Depending on the location, it is therefore to be expected that future Danish wind power expansions will necessitate a corresponding expansion of the transmission grid if it is to make full use of wind power.

Let's hope that the UK companies sucking this money from consumers with the help of OFGEN take note of the comment ..

The investments in transmission lines have service lives of 30–40 years so it is important that the system responsibility can be planned from a very long-term perspective.

Don't hold your breath.