New possible offshore wind fiasco on the way?: Andel will not bid for offshore wind tenders in the Baltic Sea and Kattegat

In December, Denmark's largest offshore wind tender to date of at least six GW ended in failure, as no one ended up bidding for the opportunity to install wind turbines in the three offered areas in the North Sea.

Now, a major potential bidder for the ongoing offshore wind tenders of up to ten GW has announced that it does not intend to bid to install wind turbines in the offered offshore wind areas. Andel thus informs DOI.dk that it will not participate in the tender. There are several reasons, but one of them is that it has not found a suitable partner after terminating an agreement with Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners last year.

- Andel has decided after careful consideration not to submit a bid in the upcoming tender round for the offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea and Kattegat. A prerequisite for Andel to be able to bid was to join forces with a partner with offshore wind experience, but despite several serious partnership dialogues, this has not been possible, says Mogens Hagelskær, Head of Renewable Energy at Andel, in a written comment.

April 1 is the next bid deadline for bidding on offshore wind projects located in inland Danish waters – including Hesselø, Kattegat and Kriegers Flak II. According to the Danish Energy Agency, the total tendered projects represent a minimum capacity of six GW, but with the possibility of overlap, the capacity can be increased to up to ten GW.

Andel: It would be irresponsible

The tender is designed without support and requires a fixed annual concession payment to the state over 30 years. The state will also have a co-ownership of 20 percent of the projects, which is combined with requirements for sustainability and social responsibility in their implementation. However, these conditions are not considered good enough by Andel.

- In addition, there are the current tender conditions. We will go to great lengths to build offshore wind in Denmark, but it would be irresponsible for us to invest large amounts of billions if we cannot count them back. We continue to find that offshore wind farms are interesting, and our hope is that all relevant forces will now come together to find the right tender model so that we can move forward with the expansion of more renewable energy in Denmark as quickly as possible, says Mogens Hagelskær.

The government's goal is that the offshore wind projects, which are part of the current tender, should be ready during 2029 and 2030.

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