Danes Kick Off Public Hearing for Hesselø Environmental Assessment

The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) and the Danish Environmental Protection Agency are holding a five-week public hearing concerning the environmental assessments for Hesselø offshore wind project.

The public, companies, authorities and other interested parties are invited to submit ideas on the strategic environmental assessment (SEA) and the environmental impact assessment (EIA) of the onshore part of the project.

The hearing, which is an early public consultation in the scoping phase, will run from 12 February to 19 March.

Based on the feedback received during the consultation, the Danish Energy Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency will decide what topics and environmental impacts to be included in the SEA and the EIA.

The results of the environmental assessments should be published in the first half of 2022, while DEA expects to issue the EIA permit for the land-based part of the project in mid-2022.

The EIA of the offshore part of the project is expected to be carried out in 2023-2024 when the tender winner is announced.

The scoping phase is expected in 2023 and the second public consultation on the EIA report is planned to be in 2024. Later in 2024, the agency expects to issue the construction license for the offshore wind farm.

Located in Kattegatt, Hesselø is the second of the three offshore wind farms proposed in Denmark’s Energy Agreement 2018, the first being the Thor project.

The Hesselø wind farm will have an installed capacity of between 800 MW and 1,200 MW.

Offshore export cables will run to the landfall at Gilbjerg Hoved in North Zealand. Near Pårup, a new high voltage power station will potentially be constructed, from where the electricity will be exported towards the existing high voltage power station Hovegaard north of Ballerup, which will be extended.