Denmark’s energy minister Lars Aagaard (M) is trying to get the Belgian government to co-pay for the Danish energy island project in the North Sea, but the negotiations are not yet complete, and they risk lasting so long that an upcoming Belgian election on June 9 could further delay the project even further, writes Børsen.

”A possible final realization date will in particular depend on new agreements with Belgium or other partner countries,” the minister writes in a memo sent to the Danish Parliament, according to Børsen.

Already under pressure

As previously reported by EnergyWatch, the Danish government postponed the tender for the North Sea energy island at the end of June 2023.

The energy islands are meant to be profitable, which was clearly contradicted by an estimate from the Danish Energy Agency that state costs for the project at the time were ”over DKK 50bn”.

Therefore, the tender was postponed. Originally, the tender was supposed to be launched as early as September 2022, but it was pushed back by a year to September 2023 - before it was subsequently rolled back again, with the announcement that the process would begin in the spring.

Translated using DeepL with additional editing by Kristoffer Grønbæk