Danish Government Launches New Energy Initiative To Support Vision Of Low-Emission Society Independent From Fossil Fuels By 2050

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Today the Danish Ministry of Energy, Utilities and Climate has launched its energy initiative called “Energy — for a green Denmark” which is meant to support the goal of at least 50% of the country’s energy consumption to be supplied by renewable energy sources by 2030.

Overall, the report states the government’s energy and climate goals:

— In 2030 Denmark will meet at least 50% of its energy needs with renewable energy.
— In 2030 coal will be completely phased out of electricity production.
— In 2050 Denmark will be a low-emission society and independent of fossil fuels.

In 2018, a ban was imposed on all exploration and drilling for oil, gas and shale gas on land and in Denmark’s internal waters.

Denmark has also committed to reaching a series of energy and climate goals in the EU by 2020:

— Greenhouse gas emissions from non-quota sectors must be reduced by 20% compared to 2005 (Danish target at 20%).
— Renewable energy must account for 20% of the EU’s energy consumption (Danish target at 30%).
— Increase in energy efficiency by 20% for the whole of EU (The annual Danish target is energy savings at 1.5% of energy consumption).

Targets for 2030:

— The EU must reduce carbon dioxide emissions at least 40% by 2030.
— The EU must reduce total emissions in the EU’s quota trading system by 43% in 2030, compared to 2005.
— Denmark must reduce emissions in the non-quota sectors by 39% compared to 2005.

After that, the report proposes a number of initiatives summarized below.

Future subsidy needs for new renewable energy

— Uniform subsidies for all technologies, enabling the market to push the most cost-efficient technologies to the forefront.
— Allocating a total of DKK 4.2 billion ($688 million) for annual public procurement of solar and wind energy from 2020 — 2024, and funding for test wind turbines.
— Allocating a total of DKK 4 billion ($655 million) to ensure the continued expansion of biogas and other green gases, and to support technological development in the sector.
— Continued subsidies for existing biomass-powered CHP plants, adapted to EU requirements stipulating the maximum subsidy period.
— Continued subsidies for existing biogas applications, adjusted for overcompensation based on EU requirements.
— Appointment of a bioenergy task force for more effective utilisation of bioenergy.
— Initiation of general inspections of wind and solar schemes.
— Elimination of direct subsidies for the establishment of new household systems based, wind turbines, etc as of 2020.
— Strong modelling and analysis framework for assessment and verification of the energy policy’s initiatives, including monitoring of developments in the renewable energy market.

The North Sea as future green powerhouse of offshore wind

In an effort to reduce the possibility of solar and wind ending up in irrational competition with each other as we have seen in Germany recently, a special focus on wind is proposed:

— Procurement of a new offshore wind farm that will supply as much as 800 megawatt (MW) to the grid, to be established in the period 2024 — 2027. The contract will be awarded in 2021.
— Execution of a large scale screening of potential locations for new offshore wind farms with a total capacity of up to 10 gigawatt (GW).
— Making a decision in 2022 regarding additional offshore wind before 2030.
— Extension of the municipal right of rejection of offshore wind farms from 8 km to 15 km from the coast.
— Initiation of analyses to establish an optimum framework for offshore wind going forward.

efkmp2
Image credit: Danish Ministry of Energy

Tax reductions on electricity

Substantial reduction of electricity prices is proposed in the report (current tax is aprox. 16 cents/kWh). Well, that’s good new for electric vehicle owners:

— The electricity tax by a total of .25 DKK/kWh (4 cents/kWh), to be phased in from 2019 to 2025.
— The tax on electricity for heating purposes to approximately .15 DKK/kWh (2.5 cents/kWh), effective 2021.
— The electricity tax for liberal professions from .914 DKK/kWh (15 cents/kWh) to 0.004 DKK/kWh, effective 2022.

An integrated and flexible world-class energy system

There are of course a lot of other initiatives in the report in the fields of energy-saving, the heating sector, research, and the export of both energy and technology, but since Denmark is among the world leaders in security of supply (99.996% uptime), the challenge of rising volumes of fluctuating green energy in the coming years is especially interesting.

Now this is the part where I thought I would find topics like “electric transportation” covered, but no. I even did a word search. Nothing, except this picture:

efkmp3
Image credit: Danish Ministry of Energy

Look, there is an electric car in there. So it probably will have a role to play in the country where 44% of all electricity is produced by wind already. Here is a quote from the report that hints they thought of everything:

“The ambition of the government is to ensure that Denmark has the most integrated, market-based and flexible energy system in Europe, with efficient energy utilisation across sectors and with a continued strong security of supply.”

See? “Across sectors.” Nice. We might finally be getting somewhere. And building a smart grid is indeed essential:

— Improving the electricity market model, focusing on marketisation of critical aspects of the electricity system, promoting flexibility, and adaptation of new technologies on market conditions. The model will be finalised by the end of 2020.
— Implementation of Electricity Market Model 3.0 in the period 2020 — 2025, with ongoing monitoring and a stronger methodology for analysing the security of supply.
— Analysis and assessment of launched initiatives, including the wholesale model, remote meter reading and flexible billing, all of which are designed to promote competition and consumer involvement in the electricity market, as well as analysis of the future role of Danish grid owner companies.
— Preparation of an action plan for smart energy, to be presented in 2020, with focus areas including the use of data and digitisation.

Can’t wait to see that model presented in 2020. I think it’s the right smart grid model than wins this game, which will have a lot of distributed energy production going on. It has to be cheap and effective to prevent everything going off-grid.

From here the report goes on about oil and gas:

“Alongside its high green ambitions, the government wants to see continued utilisation of Denmark’s oil and gas resources in the North Sea for maximum benefit to Danish society.”

Well, I guess it would be political suicide to just bury that sector right away. Good thing renewables are racing on so hard, they won’t know what hit them. It may be comforting to some that a lot of the money coming in from oil and gas will be financing the green energy transition.


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Jesper Berggreen

Jesper had his perspective on the world expanded vastly after having attended primary school in rural Africa in the early 1980s. And while educated a computer programmer and laboratory technician, working with computers and lab-robots at the institute of forensic medicine in Aarhus, Denmark, he never forgets what life is like having nothing. Thus it became obvious for him that technological advancement is necessary for the prosperity of all humankind, sharing this one vessel we call planet earth. However, technology has to be smart, clean, sustainable, widely accessible, and democratic in order to change the world for the better. Writing about clean energy, electric transportation, energy poverty, and related issues, he gets the message through to anyone who wants to know better. Jesper is founder of Lifelike.dk and a long-term investor in Tesla, Ørsted, and Vestas.

Jesper Berggreen has 241 posts and counting. See all posts by Jesper Berggreen