28 February 2022

Danish Climate Council Status Report: Progress but more needs to be done

​​"Despite significant progress in climate policy, the Climate Council finds that the government's overall climate efforts do not yet demonstrate that the 2030 target will be reached," the Climate Council wrote in the status report , which was published on Friday morning. It is the task of the Climate Council to assess the government's climate policy every year and make recommendations on how the Danish climate goals can be achieved. Although the expert council is more praiseworthy than last year - partly because the government has prioritised the analysis work and presented greater technical reduction potential - there is also a clear signal that “a large part of the reduction effects from recent agreements are moderate to high risk so that not all reductions are met. With only eight years to 2030, the government has yet to present a clear path to reach the remaining 10 million tonnes to achieve a 70 percent reduction," writes the Climate Council. The Council writes that there is a deficit of one million CO2 reductions just to reach the lower range of the 2025 climate goal. “We could perhaps achieve this by phasing out coal from Nordjyllandsværket in 2025, but the government has said no to that. So the government still owes it to say how it will achieve that goal, ”says Marie Bjerre, Liberal party climate rapporteur.

Alltinget, ING, CSR, Klimamonitor & CSR 

Ørsted wants European action on Russia

Managing Director Mads Nipper responded to criticism of the company for its continued purchasing of Russian gas, insisting that it is the EU and its member states who are required to make decisions on whether they will be allowed to continue to purchase from Russian reserves. In a statement Nipper said: “Ørsted finds the situation deeply disturbing, not least the human suffering caused by the war in Ukraine. Russian aggression goes against everything that Ørsted stands for, and therefore we have taken significant steps in accordance with our values ​​as a company. In relation to the gas that Gazprom delivers to Denmark, Ørsted recommends a clear and coordinated effort from the EU and the UK. Unlike stopping the supply of other types of products, it will have serious human and economic consequences if not enough gas is supplied, and there is therefore a need to coordinate this at EU level rather than leaving it up to the individual company. . Therefore, the dependence on Russian gas and a possible ban on gas imports from Russia must be decided and enforced by means of clear political sanctions.” But Ørsted has already taken some actions, including stopping buying biomass and coal from Russia for power plants and not entering into new contracts with Russian companies.

FredericaAvisen & Finans

CIP acquires New York Bight seabed licences

At auction on Saturday a fund managed by Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) acquired lease area OCS-A 0544 in the region known as the New York Bight. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners funds are also behind half of the joint venture of the Vineyard Wind I project. “The auction of lease areas in the New York Bight represented a strong investment opportunity given the anticipated growth of the offshore wind industry in the US in the coming years,” said Christian Skakkebæk, Senior Partner and Cofounder of CIP. “By adding OCS-A 0544, our combined portfolio on the East Coast gives us the ability to find synergies across the entire project portfolio.” In addition to Vineyard Wind, CIP, through its management of CI IV, also owns lease area OCS-A 522, which is located in the New England Wind Development Area. Acquisition of this latest lease area gives CIP the potential to develop at least 3.5 gigawatts of energy on the East Coast of the United States. ​​“The addition of this latest lease area will allow us to serve key markets along the Eastern Seaboard from New Jersey to New England,” continued Skakkebæk.

Energiwatch & CIP

Lead EU lawmaker proposes tougher targets to save energy

The European Parliament's lead negotiator, Denmark’s Niels Fuglsang, has proposed to raise the ambition of the EU's energy efficiency directive to help curb the bloc’s dependence on imported fossil fuels. The European Commission proposed that the EU reduce final energy consumption 23% by 2030 compared to projected levels but Fuglsang wants to raise that to 43% and adds binding targets for individual countries. It hikes to 2% – compared with 1.5% in the Commission's proposal – a target for countries to reduce energy consumption each year from 2024. 

Reuters

Swedish-Israeli wave power company starts work on second commercial array

Nasdaq-listed wave energy producer Eco Wave Power has begun the installation of its second grid-connected, commercial renewable energy generator, this time in Israel – where the company is based. The Swedish-Israeli company, which was founded in Tel Aviv more than a decade ago, said this week that it had finalised production of all of the “floaters” required for the project, and was starting to install them on the seawall in the Port of Jaffa. Eco Wave Power’s “floaters” work by converting the rising and falling motion of waves into energy. The 100kW Port of Jaffa project – called EWP-EDF One, due to it being a joint venture with Electricite De France (EDF) – will comprise 10 floater units which, once installed, will be tested in real conditions, before the official connection of the conversion unit, which is already installed onsite, to the Israeli national grid. “Our goal is to generate electricity during the third quarter of this year….This is a key milestone in the overall development of the Eco Wave Power technology, and we believe that the results are expected to enable us to take important steps toward the commercial rollout of our pioneering technology.” said Eco Wave Power CEO Inna Braverman. Eco Wave Power’s first commercial array – the first 100KW of a planned and contracted 5MW power station – was installed in 2016 on the east side of Gibraltar, at a former World War II Ammunition Jetty.

Reneweconomy

FuGen and EnergiEngagemang in collaboration on solar parks with a total power of 500MW

FuGen and EnergiEngagemang have recently started a collaboration with the aim of speeding up the expansion of larger solar parks around Sweden. The agreement covers the establishment of solar parks of up to 500 MW, which has a value of almost SEK 3 billion. Interest in large-scale solar energy in Sweden has increased markedly. As the price of solar panels has fallen at the same time as the price of electricity has risen to new records, many people see the potential in solar energy.

FuGen has long had its eyes open for the opportunities that exist in Sweden to be able to establish larger solar parks. The company's founders Yaron Feingers and Lorenzo Lanteri have extensive experience in the solar energy industry from having previously built up a portfolio of photovoltaic plants in Italy. "We strongly believe in the potential for solar power in Sweden, both in connection with wind farms and as our own facilities, it will be an important complement to wind power in our portfolio," they both say. FuGen already has two wind farms in Sweden that are in operation, Axelsvik 5 MW and Fjällboheden 42 MW, as well as one under construction, Tormoseröd 73 MW and they aim to build a portfolio consisting of facilities for wind, solar and energy storage. The contractor for the upcoming solar parks will be EnergiEngagemang, which, among other things, has built the large solar park at Strängnäs and which has three more large solar parks planned for 2023. The two companies are now producing a list of upcoming solar park projects that they hope to be able to present before the summer.

MyNewsDesk

What we’re reading

• Greece to propose EU energy solidarity fund to tackle crisis (Reuters)

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