Danish Energy Agency Approves Thor Wind Farm Plan

The Danish Energy Agency has approved the plan for the development of the Thor offshore wind farm, at a site west of Thorsminde.

Also, as a result of the site evaluations, the Danish Energy Agency has reduced the size of the wind farm site from 440 km2 to 286 km2.

"The decision of approving the Plan for Thor Offshore Wind Farm is based on the SEA [Strategic Environmental Assessment ] of the Plan for Thor Offshore Wind Farm and the public consultation," DEA said. DEA has determined that the wind farm can be built "without significant impacts to the environment."

The decision can be appealed to the Energy Board of Appeal for a 4-week period up to June 28, 2021.

Talking about the reason behind the decision to narrow down the size of the proposed wind farm site, DEA said: "The result of the SEA process as well as the site-investigation and other considerations have led to the narrowing down of the site for Thor. The process of narrowing down the site has taken into account a number of factors, including visual impact, cumulative visual aspects, birds, stone reefs, raw materials, fishing interest and safety of navigation."

In parallel with the environmental assessment of the Plan for Thor with the Environmental Protection Agency as Authority, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the specific onshore facility has been carried out, which is now in public consultation until June 21, 2021. 

"This process is expected to lead to an EIA-permit for the land-based project to be issued by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency in August 2021," DEA said.

The Thor wind farm will have a capacity of min. 800 MW and max. 1.000 MW, and will be connected to the grid between year 2025 and 2027. The Danish Energy Agency will conclude the tendering process with final bids in Q4 2021.

Thor offshore wind farm is the first of three large offshore wind farms to be built in Denmark before 2030. This has been decided in the Energy Agreement from June 2018,

Six consortia have pre-qualified to take part in the tender for Thor.

 The pre-qualified consortia are:

• SSE Renewables Offshore Windfarm Holdings Limited and Thor OFW K/S (owned by Copenhagen Infrastructure IV Thor OFW ApS and Andel Holding A/S) on behalf of a not yet established subsidiary
• Swan Wind P/S (ultimately owned by Eneco Wind B.V. and European Energy A/S)
• Thor Wind Farm I/S (owned by RWE Wind Holding A/S and RWE Offshore Wind A/S)
• Total Renewables S.A.S and Iberdrola Renovables Internacional S.A.U on behalf of a not yet established entity
• Vattenfall Vindkraft A/S on behalf of a not yet established entity
• Ørsted Wind Power A/S