24 Danish sea breeze projects called off
The Danish government has announced that 24 offshore wind projects under development will be cancelled due to conflicts with EU law.
“Open Door” is the Danish government’s offshore wind development scheme, which allows developers to choose their own sites and sizes to be declared and approved for implementation, unlike other countries that first identify projects and then launch tenders.
From April to August 2022, the Danish government received 47 applications, and excluding projects that did not fit into the marine master plan, 33 projects were eventually shortlisted, with a total capacity of nearly 20GW.
However, in February 2023, the Danish government found that the award of offshore wind projects under the Open Door scheme could violate the latest changes to the EU’s energy aid regulations and immediately suspended all project approvals and development.
After repeated studies, the Danish government has recently confirmed that 24 of the 33 projects are in breach of EU regulations and must be halted, while the remaining 9 can continue to be developed with a total capacity of 3.6GW.
Among the projects called off are some mega-projects, including four large Power-to-X projects developed by Vosu in cooperation with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP), which were originally planned to develop 5.2GW, but now only one project remains (1.1GW Vikinge Banke).
