The Danish Energy Agency has suspended the review of existing and new applications to install new wind farms and other renewable energy projects in the country, due to a potential conflict with European Union law.
As the Danish Energy Agency informed in a statement, it has suspended the processing of offshore wind projects and other renewable energy projects under the open door scheme.
According to Reuters, except for issuing public tenders, Denmark also enables energy companies to submit unsolicited applications to install renewable energy projects under the so-called “open door scheme”.
However, the Danish Energy Agency explained that granting permits under this program could violate EU law. Nonetheless, the agency did not disclose how many applications it was currently processing.
Commenting on the decision, Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities Lars Aagaard, said:
It is a serious situation for the green transition and especially for the market players who are ready to invest in this form of offshore wind
The Minister has now reached out to the European Commission to resolve the matter. He assured that the government “will be pursuing prompt responses on behalf of those applicants who are currently left uncertain about the future of their projects.”
Denmark has a target to increase offshore wind power capacity five times by 2030. Regarding the permitting suspension, the energy ministry said that it would not affect that target.
In the meantime, the Danish Energy Agency has evaluated the applications and has recommended the Minister of Climate, Energy and Utilities to award the first three exclusive licenses for exploration of full-scale CO2 storage in the Danish North Sea to TotalEnergies and a consortium consisting of INEOS E&P and Wintershall DEA.
The licenses are an important step towards realizing Denmark’s CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) strategy and will kick-start the plan for the development of full-scale CO2 storage in Denmark.
