By Climate Agreement for Energy and Industry of 22 June 2020, a majority of the Danish Parliament reached an agreement to establish two energy islands in Denmark, including the North Sea Energy Island.
The project has had a somewhat hesitant start trying to balance the ambitions for innovation and autonomy that the market is expecting for such a project with the more conservative approach of a traditional state-owned project.
Now, however, the tender for North Sea Energy Island seems to enter a new phase and prequalifi-cation for becoming the Danish State’s private partner for the North Sea Energy Island is thus ex-pected to be conducted in Spring 2023.
Interested private parties are encouraged to start preparing and seek out potential consortium partners to be ready in time for the tender.
Prequalification criteria may include requirements to technical capabilities and expertise, financial robustness, as well as the size/ability to finance the construction of the North Sea Energy Island.
Facts about the North Sea Energy Island:
- The North Sea Energy Island will be an artificial island planned to be built approximately 80 km off the coast of Thorsminde, a town on the coast of western Jutland.
- The North Sea Energy Island will serve as a hub that collects electricity from the surround-ing offshore wind farms and distributes the electricity to electricity grids in Denmark and the neighbouring countries.
- The North Sea Energy Island is expected to have a lifetime of +80 years to sufficiently sup-port 2 generations of offshore wind farms.
- By 2033, the North Sea Energy Island is expected to have an initial capacity of 3 GW. By 2040, the North Sea Energy Island is expected to have reached full capacity of 10 GW, cor-responding to the electricity consumption of 10 million households.
- The Danish State will be the majority owner of the North Sea Energy Island and will tender out the minority partnership stake to a private partner.
- The private partner will be responsible for carrying out the construction of the North Sea Energy Island. In the construction of the North Sea Energy Island, the private partner will be required to ensure compliance with the EU taxonomy for sustainable investment.
- The North Sea Energy Island is likely to be defined as critical infrastructure, thus invest-ments in the project are likely to be screened under the Danish Act on Screening of Invest-ments, which seeks to prevent foreign investments from posing a threat to national securi-ty or public order, particularly with regards to state-owned or -directed investors.
For further information, please contact:
Thomas Thorup Larsen, Partner, Bird & Bird
thomas.larsen@twobirds.com
