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Documents requested by Danish newspaper Berlingske showed that the proposed energy island could present a “huge vulnerability” – and potentially causing a blackout that would affect Denmark and connected European neighbours in the event of sabotage.
The Nord Stream pipeline attack in September 2022 prompted Danish authorities to explore the risk a future Danish energy island in the North Sea could be exposed to, Berlingske reported.
Energy island concept
Denmark’s proposed energy island development has been touted as one of the world’s first and largest offshore electrical infrastructure projects of its kind.
By 2033, the energy island is planned to have a capacity of 3GW zero carbon electricity, supplied by future offshore wind farms, increasing to 10GW by 2040 as more offshore wind capacity is built and connected. At this size, the energy island would power an estimated 10 million homes in Denmark, as well as neighbouring North Sea countries connected to it.
A spokesperson at the Danish energy ministry said Berlingske had been granted access to certain documents related to its energy island project in the North Sea, mainly from the DEA but also from the ministry and Energinet.
Crisis protocols
According to Denmark’s energy ministry, the authority that has day-to-day responsibility for an energy asset will also be responsible in “crisis mode”, including when an asset is attacked.
“This means that the Danish Energy Agency and the ministry…are responsible for security of supply in a crisis situation,” it said.
Through cooperation with the regulated grid operator, Energinet, a sector contingency plan has been developed that describes how incidents must be handled. In addition to the sector plan, Energinet also has its own contingency plan, which sets out a framework for how it must deal with any incidents.
The ministry stated: “With energy islands and much more wind power, we must build these facilities in a way that ensures the robustness of the energy system.”
The ministry said the relevant regulations were being updated as two EU directives – Network and Information Security (NIS) and Critical Entities Resilience (CER) – were implemented in Danish legislation.
‘No protection is perfect’
The DEA and the ministry are also in “close dialogue” with relevant authorities that would be responsible for defending infrastructure, such as an energy islands, against physical attacks.
It stated: “It must be emphasised that there is no place in the world where you have 100% protection of the critical infrastructure. It cannot be done, and it would be financially irresponsible to try.”
A source at a developer in the European offshore wind industry said energy islands have potential beyond Denmark, and the company has identified other opportunities that are “moving at a quicker pace” than in Denmark. Earlier this year, the initial tender was delayed a second time and the energy ministry stated that the cost – estimated at above DKK 50 billion (€6.7 billion) – is “far from living up to the political requirement of profitability”.
‘Build in energy island defence’
The source told Windpower Monthly that issues around the vulnerability of distributed, interconnected decarbonised energy infrastructure to hacking and sabotage – and how to protect them – has been a topic for discussion in the wind industry for some time.
“As energy islands might be built far offshore at the edge of the territorial waters of a particular country, one idea could be to design such structures to support activities by marine defence or naval agencies, which would incorporate more security or protection,” the source said.
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