Danish experiences on offshore wind

The China National Renewable Energy Centre and the Danish Energy Agency have released a new publication that aims to convey the last 25 years of experience from the Danish offshore wind industry into specific key learnings that could be useful to the Chinese offshore wind industry.

3 September 2014

"Offshore Wind in China - Danish Experiences”, as the new publication is called, aims to convey the experiences of 25 years of Danish offshore wind development by particularly focusing on regulatory parameters that create and support the best possible conditions for the wind industry. The goal of the publication is to outline specific key learnings and give recommendations that could give useful inspiration to the Chinese offshore wind industry.

The Danish story 1991-2013

In 1991 Denmark became the first country in the world to take wind turbines out to sea. With a capacity of 1,300 MW offshore wind turbines connected to the electricity grid in 2013, Denmark is still one of the largest developers of wind farms in the world with further ambitions of doubling its offshore capacity by 2020. In spite of Denmark limited size, the country has tremendously successful with the development of its offshore wind industry, not only because of excellent wind conditions and shallow waters around the coast of Denmark, but also because of the Danish government’s effort to design a regulatory framework that actively cooperates with and promotes the wind industry.

“Offshore Wind in China – Danish Experiences” aims to give a broader understanding of how Denmark has been able to create a regulatory framework that has improved the market conditions of the offshore wind energy and helped the Danish offshore wind industry in becoming a leading industry in the world. The publication focuses on regulatory parameters such as performance and tariffs, operators and turbines types, geographic planning, consenting procedures, offshore tendering, grid and electricity market, economics of offshore wind and the Danish investment climate.

Key Learnings

Mentioned below is a few of the key learnings conveyed from the Danish offshore experience:

• Prices of offshore wind may be driven down by preparing and providing preliminary surveys to the investor. This will allow the investor to know the site intimately before planning the actual project. Also, this will allow the investor to give a cost price rather than an estimate for the price of the production.
   
• Prices of offshore wind may be driven down if the investor has certainty that the grid connection can offtake the production as soon as the park starts producing.
   
• Consider establishing a one-shop-stop for investors, planners and contra­ctors, i.e. providing one primary government entry point.
   
• Consider to have all preliminary investigations including EIAs carried out before the investor will set the price, so that the designated areas are ready, limiting the risks for investors and developers. The advantage is that the time when the price is calculated is very close to the time of con­tracting with the sub suppliers. The risk of price volatility in the market is thus significantly reduced.

Read more about "Offshore Wind in China - Danish Experiences” under 'Documents' in the right margin.

Publication: Offshore Wind in China

Erik Kjær
AC-medarbejder
Center for Global Rådgivning og Forhandling
Tlf.: 41 18 84 29
ekj@ens.dk