Denmark has reached a landmark agreement on plans to build an offshore island to act as an energy hub about 80 kilometers from the shore of the peninsula of Jutland in the North Sea.
The energy hub will serve as an offshore power plant gathering and distributing electricity from hundreds of wind turbines surrounding the island directly to consumers in countries surrounding the North Sea.
The island is expected to have a total area of at least 120,000 square metres, and in its first phase around 200 wind turbines with a combined capacity for 3 GW are expected to be installed to provide three million European households with energy.
When fully developed the North Sea energy island hub will reach a capacity of 10GW. Fully implemented it is expected to be able to cover the consumption of 10 million European households. A second Danish energy hub is planned for the island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea.
In the UK, the Treasury are in line for are in line for a multibillion-pound bonanza from renewable energy, after a major auction of seabed plots for windfarms off the coasts of England and Wales attracted runaway bids.
Two windfarm sites within the Irish Sea have reportedly attracted the most frenzied bidding, with energy firms offering to pay as much as £200m for each – a total revenue of £400m a year. Awards for another three areas have yet to be decided. The licences are for 10 years, meaning the auction will raise at least £4bn over a decade.