Mundus Nordic Green News – 24 November, 2020

Danish energy island mega-project inches forward

The parties to Denmark’s project to build islands to produce wind power have decided on the location of offshore wind at energy island Bornholm and chosen a gross area for the location of energy and offshore wind in the North Sea. With the decision, the government and a broad majority in the Folketing are taking the next important steps within the green transition. The energy islands will together be able to triple Danish electricity production from offshore wind turbines and can supply around five million households in Denmark and neighboring countries with green electricity.

 

Danish energy consumption falls 8.1% in first 9mo of 2020

Energy consumption in the first nine months of 2020 has been affected by the shutdown due to Covid-19 and warmer weather than last year. The most important changes compared to the same period last year were:

• Consumption of jet fuel down by 61%
• Coal consumption down by 12.8%
• The production of electricity from solar cells was up 22.5%
• Wind power production increased by 2.9%

 

Confederation of Swedish Enterprise demands halving the time to gain environmental approvals for Swedish mega-project to proceed

The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise. Svensk Näringsliv, says that while LKAB wants to invest SEK 400 billion in fossil-free steel, long permit processes risk delaying the project. "We need to double the speed of the changeover, something that requires halved times to get a permit," writes Lina Håkansdotter, Head of Sustainability and Infrastructure at Svensk Näringsliv. The Confederation of Swedish Enterprise has long had concrete proposals on what should be done, but politics has not acted.

 

Renewable energy from Vattenfall around the clock to Microsoft's Swedish data centres

Vattenfall and Microsoft Sweden launched "24/7 Matching solution" as a pilot project last year. The solution is based on Microsoft's Azure IoT Central platform, which connects data from energy production such as wind and hydropower from Vattenfall, with data from smart electricity meters that measure consumption in real time. This provides transparency that increases the understanding of how energy is used and affects the climate. The solution, which is used to measure the instantaneous use of renewable electricity, will now be used in Microsoft's three new data halls in Sweden, in Gävle, Staffanstorp and Sandviken. Vattenfall will also supply electricity from wind and hydropower to the data centers starting in 2021. Noelle Walsh, Corporate Vice-President, Cloud Operations + Innovation at Microsoft's, says that the new data centres will be amongst the world's best in terms of sustainability, both in terms of design and operation.

 

Vestas wind turbine topples over in Swedent

A 230 metre tall Vestas wind turbine tower has collapsed at a project site in northern Sweden. Drone footage shows the snow-covered wreckage of a 4.2-megawatt Vestas V150 turbine, which appears to have collapsed after buckling part of the way up its tower.

 

The Bank of Åland launches Finland's first wind investment special investment fund

The Bank of Åland will further strengthen its work on responsible investments by launching Finland's first special investment fund investing in wind power. The fund invests either in fully licensed and ready-to-build wind farm projects or in existing wind farms in Finland and other Nordic countries. By investing in the fund, Bank of Åland's customers can contribute to Finland's transition to a carbon-neutral society by 2035.

 

Advanced Soltech wins Chinese award

Advanced Soltech was recognized for its ability to build large projects in a fast and efficient way with high quality. 

 

Orsted gains exposure to huge Dogger Bank wind farm

Although Ørsted is not building the massive Dogger Bank itself, the energy company will be a shadow player in the project, via a huge Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), with Equinor and SSE, who are close to financial close of the world's largest marine wind farm, with a total of 1.44 GW.  

 

Seperately, Ørsted has presented its plans to develop an even larger offshore wind project of up to 1.6 GW off the coast of the South Korean port city of Incheon.

 

---