Hammer hovers over gigascale Thor as Denmark draws lots for offshore wind giant

Consortia made up of Iberdrola-Total, SSE-Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Eneco-European Energy, along with Vattenfall, Orsted and RWE, all in running for eagerly-awaited development in North Sea

Danish flag flies with Sprogø wind farm in the background
Danish flag flies with Sprogø wind farm in the backgroundFoto: Evan Hemmingsen

Development of Denmark’s highly-anticipated 1GW Thor offshore wind farm will be decided by lottery, the Nordic country’s energy authority has announced.

The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) said it had invited “a number of bidders” – which Recharge previously reported is expected to include consortia made up Iberdrola and TotalEnergies, SSE and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, and Eneco and European Energy as Swan Wind, along with Vattenfall, Orsted and RWE – to draw lots to build the near-zero-subsidy North Sea project.

“More than one bidder has offered to build Thor offshore wind farm with a capacity of 1,000MW at the minimum price of DKr0.10/MWh [$0.015/MWh], and the tender will therefore, in accordance with the tender conditions, be decided by drawing lots,” said the DEA, in a statement.

The lottery, set to take place on 1 December, will be supervised by an independent auditor and the Denmark’s legal advisor, Kammeradvokaten, “in order to ensure that the process is living up to the procurement rules… and with full transparency”, it added.

Once built, Thor will be the largest wind farm off Denmark, surpassing the 600MW Kriegers Flak, brought into earlier this year and 407MW Horns Rev 3, which began operating in 2019.
The DKr15bn project, for which the starter’s pistol was fired in September 2020, is the the first of the three offshore wind farms agreed to be auctioned-off by the DEA in 2018

Thor, located 22km off the coast of Denmark, will be awarded with a “flexibility” of 800MW-1GW, with export cables bundled into the tender.

“The grid connection window opens 1 January 2025, and Thor must be fully established and connected to the grid by the end of 2027 at the latest,” said the DEA.

At full power, Thor will be able supply electricity to around 800,000 households.

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Published 25 November 2021, 08:08Updated 25 November 2021, 10:57
DenmarkTotalEnergiesSSEIberdrolaCopenhagen Infrastructure Partners