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ENERGY

Denmark and Baltic countries plan ‘seven times more’ offshore wind energy

Denmark and other nations bordering the Baltic Sea will announce on Tuesday a plan to dramatically boost offshore wind energy by 2030. 

Denmark and Baltic countries plan 'seven times more' offshore wind energy
The Baltic Sea could produce seven times more wind energy than it does today by 2030, according to an expected new plan between countries in the region. File photo: Bo Amstrup/Ritzau Scanpix

Today, just under 3 gigawatts are generated in the Baltic Sea, about half of which is Danish energy. An additional 1,100 to 1,700 offshore wind turbines will be needed to bring the total energy capacity to nearly 20 gigawatts in 2030.

A joint agreement to reach these levels in coming years is to be announced by participating countries on Tuesday, according to newspaper Politiken.

The newspaper reports a draft declaration it has seen in relation to the agreement, which will be presented at a summit at the Danish prime minister’s residence, Marienborg, north of Copenhagen on Tuesday.

READ ALSO: Denmark keen to join with Baltic countries on wind energy

Should the amount of additional energy reported by Politiken be produced, as many as 22 to 30 million households could see their energy needs covered by wind power.

Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen talked up the importance of wind power in comments to Politiken.

“The war in Ukraine and climate change are being met with now. We have two crises on the table at the same time. We need to speed up green energy conversion and we need to free ourselves from Russian fossil fuels,” she said.

Frederiksen is participating in the summit on behalf of Denmark. Senior officials and leaders and from Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and the EU Commission will also attend.

The summit was earlier scheduled to take place on Denmark’s Baltic island Bornholm but was moved due to a strike at Bornholm’s airport, which was not resolved until late on Monday.

A total of 2.8 gigawatts of wind power are currently produced in the Baltic Sea according to the Danish energy ministry.

Potentially, that could be increased to 93 gigawatts by 2050, an EU Commission assessment has found.

Earlier this year, Frederiksen hosted a green energy summit in western Danish city Esbjerg, at which the government signed an agreement with Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany for a ten-fold increase of offshore wind power capacity in the North Sea to 150 gigawatts by 2050.

On Monday, the Danish parliament voted through plans to increase production wind energy at a wind turbine park off Bornholm from 2 to 3 gigawatts. The facility will be connected to Germany.

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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