A report by the Swedish Energy Agency on ways to quadruple the country’s potential output from wind at sea to 120TWh per year has backed the area encompassing a gigascale Orsted project as “suitable for offshore wind”, and called for a coexistence between renewable and naval interests.
The developer’s 1.5GW Skåne Havsvindpark has already received all important regional and environmental permits and is awaiting a final OK from the central government in Stockholm. Orsted expects that to come forward later this year – possibly making it the first major project to gain a green light in a massive second wave of wind at sea development that could see dozens of gigawatts being erected in coming years.
Sweden so far has only 192MW of operating offshore wind capacity.
“The message from the Energy Agency is very positive. If we get a decision from the government this year, the wind farm can deliver electricity as early as 2029 and contribute to meeting Sweden's rapidly increasing electricity needs,” said Sebastian Hald Buhl, Sweden country manager at Orsted.
Sweden rolled out a maritime spatial plan early last year spotlighting key areas for offshore wind development in its Baltic and North Sea waters that could flow 20-30TWh of electricity a year to the national grid. The government at that stage asked the Swedish Energy Agency to coordinate with nine authorities in order to identify additional suitable areas that could eventually host wind farms at sea for another 90TWh per annum.
'Constructive dialogue with armed forces'
While the report now published doesn’t yet put a figure on how much additional capacity could be added in an update to the maritime spatial plan, it does make a series of recommendations on what should be done to boost Sweden’s offshore potential.
Among them is a call for a more solutions-oriented approach, as well as the assertion that it is of the highest priority to find technical solutions allowing wind power and defence to coexist to facilitate a speedy expansion of offshore wind.
“We believe that the next step is a permit from the government that is conditional on the approval of defence, which will enable us to start a constructive dialogue with the Armed Forces,” Hald Buhl said.
“We are sure that together we can find technical solutions that meet the needs of the Armed Forces, just as we have done in Great Britain, Poland and Taiwan.”
Clearing military resistance is seen as one of the main hurdles to an offshore wind boom in the Baltic Sea, especially in Sweden. The Nordic country’s Navy in the past had shot down other offshore wind projects.
Military sensitivities are further heightened since the sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea last year, which happened near the Danish island of Bornholm not too far away from Orsted’s planned Skåne wind farm – so the energy agency in its report could also have simply said ‘no’ to the project, pointing to military interests.
Instead, the Swedish Energy Agency, despite Armed Forces reservations, has singled out the area as having "very good conditions for the establishment of offshore wind power in the near term based on wind, depth, distance to land, electricity needs and conditions for electricity grid connection”.
The Skåne Havsvindpark would be located 22km south of Ystad and Trelleborg in Sweden's economic zone. In an area west of Bornholm and north of the German island of Rügen.
The Swedish Energy Agency in its report also said that a gigascale area in the central-northern area of the Baltic Sea could be fast-tracked, next to the area south of Skåne.
