Invitation to Market Dialogue on the Procurement Framework for the Energy Island in the North Sea

The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) invites potential tenderers and relevant market actors to participate in a virtual market dialogue on the procurement framework for the coming tender identifying the commercial co-owner of the Energy Island in the North Sea. The DEA is tendering out co-ownership of the Energy Island and plans to launch the tendering process in 2022, announcing the winner in 2023. The market dialogue will be an opportunity for the market and potential tenderers to discuss the main elements of the tender with the DEA and provide input to the conditions for the tender, including timetable etc. The market dialogue will be based on market-specific questions based on selected themes outlined in a discussion paper. The DEA will publish the discussion paper on the website stated in section I.1). Potential tenderers and relevant market actors should stay updated on information about the market dialogue on this website.

In February 2021, a broad majority of the Danish Parliament agreed that the Energy Island should be an artificial island connecting and distributing power from the surrounding offshore wind farms. The establishment of the Energy Island as an artificial island will be a completely new concept for capture, distribution and utilisation of power from offshore wind on an unprecedented scale. The Energy Island will be located in the North Sea with a starting capacity of 3 GW from connected offshore wind farms. The capacity may increase to 10 GW in future. The political agreement acknowledges that it is important to include expertise from commercial operators in order to fulfil the potential of the project. It is therefore the aim of the Danish State that the ownership of the Energy Island should be shared between a commercial co-owner and the Danish State. The Danish State must however always be the majority owner of the Energy Island (and majority owner of activities defined as critical infrastructure). Further information will be stated in the discussion paper which includes sections on the timetable for the procurement process and the overall project, the interim business case, corporate structure models, construction and technical requirements, the possibilities for innovation and commercialization, as well as certain preconditions and interdependencies. In order for the coming tendering of the co-ownership of the Energy Island to target the relevant tenderers, the Danish Energy Agency wishes to learn from the market dialogue how to optimise the timetable, how the co-ownership should best be structured, how an artificial island could be constructed, and how the project as a whole will become a profitable investment for both the commercial co-owner and the Danish State. In this way, the framework for the procurement will be optimised so that the Danish Energy Agency will receive good and qualified tenders, ensuring an optimal solution for the establishment and co-ownership of the Energy Island to the benefit of society.

The Danish Energy Agency will invite up to a maximum of 10 commercial operators to participate in virtual dialogue meetings via Skype. A group of several commercial operators (e.g. a consortium) that wishes to participate jointly in the dialogue meeting will be considered one commercial operator in this context.

The selection of participants for the virtual dialogue meeting will be based on the aim to secure a broad composition of relevant market operators and potential tenderers, preferably consisting of potential commercial co-owners of the Energy Island, relevant financial investors and contractors and/or project developers.

The Danish Energy Agency reserves the right to invite less participants to the virtual dialogue if the Danish Energy Agency assesses that a broad composition of relevant market operators can be obtained with less than 10 participants.

In addition to the virtual dialogue meetings, the Danish Energy Agency encourages all relevant market operators and potential tenderers to submit written recommendations and answers to the questions raised by the Danish Energy Agency in the document referred to as ‘Discussion Paper’.

Requests for participation in a meeting and written recommendations in Danish and/or English should be submitted by e-mail to Signe Marie Enghave at sgme@ens.dk. In the request for participation in the market dialogue, please provide a brief introduction to your business(es) and state why you are interested in this project.

Indicative timetable for the market dialogue:

15 March 2021 — Discussion paper available on the website stated in section I.1.

16 March 2021 at 12.00 noon (local time DK) – Deadline for requests for participation in the virtual dialogue meeting

18 March 2021 – DEA will submit invitations to the virtual dialogue to selected participants.

22 March 2021 — 26 March 2021 – Virtual dialogue with invited participants.

6 April 2021 – Deadline for submission of written answers and recommendations from all potential tenderers and relevant market actors.

Dialogue meetings will be in Danish and/or English. After the dialogue meetings, the Danish Energy Agency will publish a short summary of the overall findings from the market dialogue.

The DEA expects to issue invitations for a second market dialogue in Q4 2021.

The DEA has also submitted a newsletter regarding this call for market dialogue. The newsletter is available on the website stated in section I.1.