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ENVIRONMENT

12 percent of Danish wind energy to be produced by giant new offshore farm

49 wind turbines spinning away 25 kilometres off Denmark’s west coast are to produce 12 per cent of the country’s wind power.

12 percent of Danish wind energy to be produced by giant new offshore farm
Horns Rev 3. File photo: Henning Bagger / Ritzau Scanpix

The wind farm, Horns Rev 3, was inaugurated Thursday afternoon at the harbour in Hvide Sande, seven years after parliament voted in favour of the turbines, writes dibusiness.dk.

It is the largest of its kind in the country and will play a key role in Denmark’s goal to have half its electricity produced by wind power by 2020.


Crown Prince Frederik (centre) inaugurated the Horns Rev 3 wind farm, while PM Mette Frederiksen and local schoolchildren were also among those present on Thursday. Photo: Henning Bagger/Ritzau Scanpix

Director Tine Roed of the Confederation of Danish Industry (Dansk Industri, DI) called Horns Rev 3 an “outstanding achievement within wind power development”.

“The turbines are constantly getting bigger and more efficient. Companies are getting better at manufacturing and installing the turbines, and the price is falling,” Roed said.

The new plant also represents a step forward in wind turbine technology.

The turbines, produced by Danish company Vestas, are double the size of the turbines that used at the offshore wind farm off Anholt, in operation since 2013. Meanwhile, the price of the new turbines is 32 per cent lower, DI Business reports.

This means that wind turbines can now compete with essentially all other forms of new electricity production, which contributes to reducing carbon emissions.

The 187-metre tall wind turbines will provide year-round electricity for about 425,000 households.

“We are well on our way to eradicating the environmental impact of our electricity sector. In the future, we must become better at utilising green power elsewhere – for example when driving cars and heating houses,” Roed said.

“Danish wind turbines are a highly demanded export good, but the competition is tough. It is therefore essential that the sector has a domestic market that supports the development and testing of wind turbines,” the DI director added.

READ ALSO: Danish politician goes viral with video offering Trump 'great deal' on windmills

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ENVIRONMENT

Sweden’s SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

The Swedish steel giant SSAB has announced plans to build a new steel plant in Luleå for 52 billion kronor (€4.5 billion), with the new plant expected to produce 2.5 million tons of steel a year from 2028.

Sweden's SSAB to build €4.5bn green steel plant in Luleå 

“The transformation of Luleå is a major step on our journey to fossil-free steel production,” the company’s chief executive, Martin Lindqvist, said in a press release. “We will remove seven percent of Sweden’s carbon dioxide emissions, strengthen our competitiveness and secure jobs with the most cost-effective and sustainable sheet metal production in Europe.”

The new mini-mill, which is expected to start production at the end of 2028 and to hit full capacity in 2029, will include two electric arc furnaces, advanced secondary metallurgy, a direct strip rolling mill to produce SSABs specialty products, and a cold rolling complex to develop premium products for the transport industry.

It will be fed partly from hydrogen reduced iron ore produced at the HYBRIT joint venture in Gälliväre and partly with scrap steel. The company hopes to receive its environemntal permits by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: 

The announcement comes just one week after SSAB revealed that it was seeking $500m in funding from the US government to develop a second HYBRIT manufacturing facility, using green hydrogen instead of fossil fuels to produce direct reduced iron and steel.

The company said it also hoped to expand capacity at SSAB’s steel mill in Montpelier, Iowa. 

The two new investment announcements strengthen the company’s claim to be the global pioneer in fossil-free steel.

It produced the world’s first sponge iron made with hydrogen instead of coke at its Hybrit pilot plant in Luleå in 2021. Gälliväre was chosen that same year as the site for the world’s first industrial scale plant using the technology. 

In 2023, SSAB announced it would transform its steel mill in Oxelösund to fossil-free production.

The company’s Raahe mill in Finland, which currently has new most advanced equipment, will be the last of the company’s big plants to shift away from blast furnaces. 

The steel industry currently produces 7 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, and shifting to hydrogen reduced steel and closing blast furnaces will reduce Sweden’s carbon emissions by 10 per cent and Finland’s by 7 per cent.

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