Minister gives green light to Dutch energy cable

Danish energy consumers can look forward to an increased electricity bill

Jun 3, 2014

The climate, energy and building minister, Rasmus Helveg Petersen, has approved a 700 MW sea cable that will stretch between Denmark and the Netherlands and benefit wind turbines and power plants.

The project, which still needs the approval of the Dutch government and is named the Cobra cable, has a total budget of 4.7 billion kroner – 2.25 billion kroner of which will be paid by Danish electricity consumers via the grid tariff.

“In Denmark it’s good business for power plants, wind turbine owners, CHP plants and other power producers who have the opportunity to export more power,” Dorthe Vinther, the head of development at Energinet.dk, the national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas, told Ingeniøren.

Bills going up
But it's Denmark’s energy consumers who will ultimately pay for the billion kroner cable. Energinet.dk estimates the average consumer will experience a electricity price hike of 30 øre/kWh during its construction and about 1.5 øre/kWh once the cable is up and running.

Aside from the Dutch approval, the project still needs a green light from the Danish nature authorities, Naturstyrelsen, and also assent from Germany because the 294km cable passes through German waters.

The Cobra connection is scheduled to be operational by 2019 and be partly funded by 645 million kroner of EU subsidies.