“The Green Transition in Denmark Has Collapsed”

“ Last week, Brian Vad Mathiesen one of Denmark’s leading professors in 100% renewable energy systems, sounded the alarm over possible power shortages.”

The Green Transition in Denmark Has Collapsed

In short:

🕯️ Brown outs already in the 2030’s

🔌 Dependent on neighboring countries

🪵 2/3 of renewables comes from biomass

🌬️ Offshore wind tender fiasco

🏝️ Energy islands postponed

Last week, Brian Vad Mathiesen one of Denmark’s leading professors in 100% renewable energy systems, sounded the alarm over possible power shortages. Ironically, he’s one of the same individuals that for many years recommended a 100% RE system.

This 100% RE system represents the kind of academic tabletop exercise that has led us to this outcome.

This comes after the Danish TSO Energinet published its annual report on Security of Supply, which makes the argument: In the future Denmark will face serve power needs.

Denmark is also expected to have the lowest domestic security of supply in the future. In 2034 Energinet expects domestic production in Denmark only being able to cover around 25-40% of its consumption in the most critical hour.

By comparison countries like Norway, Sweden and France are able to cover between 75-100% of their consumption with domestic production.

Denmark will, therefore, by far be the country most dependent on its neighbors in the future.

In 20-30% of the year Denmark will need to import electricity from its neighbors to keep on the lights.

In some hours Denmark will need to import between 7-11 GW of electricity in 2034. Today the maximum import requirements in Denmark are between 1-3 GW.

The recommendation by Mathiesen would be to extend the biomass fired power plants in Denmark long into the 2030’s to secure supply.

This is quite ironic as Mathiesen and his colleagues have fought against nuclear energy on Danish soil for centuries.

At the same time as Mathiesen sounds the alarm and recommends to keep the biomass powered power plants running, Danish national broadcaster TV 2 Danmark aired a documentary about Denmark’s unsustainable use of biomass.

While Danish energy giant Ørsted, which operates most of these plant, claim their biomass use as sustainable, new evidence show that this is a truth with modifications.

If all this wasn’t enough for the danish green transition to shake, last week the Danish energy department announced that not a single company wants to build offshore wind in the Danish North Sea.

For the last decade Danish politicians and lobbyists in the wind sector have guaranteed that offshore wind wouldn’t need state subsidies. Therefore it’s quite humorous to see several people in the industry whine about there not being any CFD’s in the Danish offshore tender.

What will happen?

Denmark now finds itself in a classic Catch-22 situation:

We want to decarbonize our grid with wind and solar, but also keep our security of supply.

Both makes us reliant on burning unsustainable biomass for years to come.

Additionally, the deployment of wind and solar has stalled because they are no longer economically feasible.

Is it time to reconsider nuclear energy in Denmark?