A consortium comprising Danish pension funds PensionDanmark and PFA, compatriot energy company SEAS-NVE and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners are ready to invest in an up to 10GW offshore wind energy island in the North Sea called VindO.
The partners said long-term VindO could be made up of 25 traditional offshore wind farms and support the government’s ambition for an energy island in the North Sea that can be financed without public funding.
VindO would be an artificial island made up of concrete submersible boxes approximately 100 km out in the North Sea.
The state-owned company Energinet, which owns the overall energy infrastructure in Denmark, can buy part of the island to install a export cable to ensure public ownership of the transmission network, the partners said.
They added that VindO can be expanded in line with the development of storage technology or Power-to-X, as well as connect to other countries around the North Sea.
SEAS-NVE chief executive Jesper Hjulmand said: “In future, the energy needs of society must be covered even more by renewable energy sources if we are to succeed with the green transition. And we should.
“At SEAS-NVE, we have a long tradition of taking significant co-responsibility for developing the Danish energy system. A development that is driven by strong professional insight.
“Among other things, this is the knowledge we can bring into play in connection with VindO. Most recently, we have concrete experience from energy storage experiments.”