Danish offshore wind makes comeback after auction model revamp

The about-turn has been achieved with a redesign of the auction model, which appears to have coaxed developers back to the table.

In 2024 the tender had required developers to pay a concession fee with no subsidies, hand the state a 20% stake in each project, fund their own site surveys and work to tight deadlines, leaving them exposed to rising costs with no safety net. It drew zero bids and major developers, including Ørsted and Vattenfall itself, confirmed they had walked away because, as Ørsted put it at the time, the numbers simply didn’t support the required investment.

The redesign was done in November 2025, when the agency launched a new set of tenders covering North Sea Central, North Sea South and Hesselø, totalling at least 2.8GW.

Contracts for Difference now guarantee developers a fixed price per MWh, the state ownership requirement was dropped, site survey data is provided free, and deadlines were relaxed.

The state absorbs more risk; developers keep full ownership.

Vattenfall and two subsidiaries will build two new offshore wind farms: ‘North Sea Central’ and ‘Hesselø’, north of the island of the same name in the Kattegat.

Vattenfall’s winning bids – €67/MWh for North Sea Central and €72.5/MWh for Hesselø – were the lowest submitted for each site. Two bidders competed for North Sea Central; five contested Hesselø. The winning price is guaranteed for 20 years from completion.

“The Danish Energy Agency has conducted an extensive market dialogue and tender process for the construction of two new offshore wind farms in the North Sea and Kattegat,” said Deputy Director General of the Danish Energy Agency, Stig Uffe Pedersen. “It is very gratifying that we have now reached an important milestone with a positive result, where we can announce the winners of the tenders.”

Recent European awards

The Danish awards land amid a busy few months for offshore wind contracting activity across Europe.

In the Netherlands, DEME was awarded a substantial contract in July for the transport and installation of foundations for phase one of the Zeevonk offshore wind project, jointly owned by Vattenfall and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, which will have a total installed capacity of approximately 1 GW.

In the UK, RES was awarded the Safety from the System and Operational Control contract for ScottishPower Renewables’ East Anglia TWO offshore wind farm off the Suffolk coast with capacity for up to 960MW.

In Germany, momentum has continued around the Gennaker project off the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula: Semco Maritime and subsidiary Wind Multiplikator secured a 5.5-year integrated service contract for the nearby Nordergründe wind farm, while OEG has separately secured a corrosion protection contract for Gennaker itself, which will comprise 63 turbines on monopile foundations, with offshore installation due in 2027.