Germany signs wind energy deal with Denmark

Days after agreeing green hydrogen energy deals with Canada, Germany has signed another wind energy co-operation agreement with Denmark.

Six months after the war in Ukraine called old political and economic certainties into question, Germany is racing to transform its dependency on Russian energy.

Ahead of an international wind energy conference next week in Denmark, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock met her Danish counterpart in Copenhagen to sign new bilateral energy agreements.

The German minister said the time had come for the region’s to “set sail” on a new chapter of energy co-operation to tap the Baltic Sea’s “enormous” energy potential.

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“Wind energy from the Baltic Sea will help us fight the climate crisis,” she said. “And it is an investment in our security: it will help make us less dependent on gas from Russia.”

Currently the Baltic Sea is tapped for 2.8 gigawatts (GW) of energy but, according to a European Commission estimate, the full potential could be increased to 93 gigawatts by 2050 — roughly double the output of Germany’s current coal-fire energy plants.

With one gigawatt of energy enough to deliver energy to up to 1.5 million households, Denmark’s minister for climate, energy and critical supplies Dan Jørgensen said Nordic countries had to make more of an underused resource on their doorstep.

Denmark is already the largest wind energy producer in the region, he said, but even it needs new partners to grow further.

“If we are to get bigger, it is clear that we have to work with others, because we must,” he told the Ritzau news agency.

At another green energy summit earlier this year, Denmark signed an agreement with Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to boost tenfold to 150GW by 2050 offshore wind power capacity in the North Sea.

While the generally calmer Baltic does not have the same potential, Mr Jørgensen said it still had “significant” potential.

Next week’s Baltic Council meeting, Copenhagen says, is about “how to make the Baltic Sea region free of Russian energy and at the same time pave the way for a significant green transition”.

On July 1st, Germany took over the rotating leadership of the council. It suspended Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February. Moscow later withdrew, saying the organisation was becoming “an anti-Russian tool”.

In addition to energy agreements on Friday, the Danish and German foreign ministers agreed closer co-operation on security policy, permitted after a Danish referendum in favour of closer co-operation in European Union common security and defence policy.