Our society needs more renewable energy to phase-out fossil fuels used for electricity generation. The current Danish electricity-mix consists of numerous sources, including offshore wind, solar PV, onshore wind, biomass and hydropower. As electricity production and consumption have to be balanced at all times, cross border power trade is vital to stabilise the national grids. Until now, offshore wind farms have been constructed as individual non-connected units. However, if we are to find a way where more countries can be connected, it will increase the efficiency of the electricity production from the wind farms by distributing it across the European power grid.

In the North Sea, a wind energy hub, VindØ (Wind Island) will be build as an artifical island 100 kilometres from shore.  From here the wind electricity can be collected and forwarded to the shore. The location of the wind farm makes it invisible from the shore. To ensure a public ownership of the transmission grid, the government owned company Energinet, who owns the general energy infrastructure in Denmark, are able to buy a park of the island to install a transmission cable.

The Energy Island is an important part of an economic-sensible expansion of the offshore electricity capacity. In Addition, it has the potential of becoming an exportable product. The experiences from the North sea could be shared with the rest of the world.

Wind Island is based on utilising existing technology within classic Danish Strengths, but with an innovative concept, which will fundamentally change our approach for utilising offshore wind energy. In addition to being important to an economic-sensible expansion of the offshore electricity capacity, Wind Island has the potential of becoming an exportable product. It is possible to expand Wind Island concurrently with the development of storage technology or e.g. Power-to-X.

In relation to the Danish Government’s Climate Action Plan from 2020, PensionDanmark, PFA and Andel (formerly known as SEAS-NVE) is ready to finance Wind Island in the North Sea with a DKK 400 million funding to develop the project. Together, the partners are a strong consortium, known for a long-term and sustainable ownership with a focus on clients, members and shareholders.

Wind Island is going to be a base for up to ten gigawatts, which is the same as approximately 25 traditional offshore wind farms. It will also help to limit the local disturbance by reducing the need for onshore wind farms and solar parks.