The proposed offshore wind farm includes up to 105 turbines in an area far out at sea to ensure low to no visibility from land.
The Delta North project is planned to be built in Sweden’s economic zone, approximately 100 kilometres east of Stockholm and 55 kilometres east of Sandhamn Island.
According to Statkraft, Delta North will not be visible from the mainland and the inner archipelago (where the vast majority of Stockholm County’s population lives) and will have little visibility from certain places in the middle archipelago. There may be some visibility from the outermost islands of the outer archipelago, said the company.
With water depths ranging from 40 metres to 80 metres, the area is the only suitable location for bottom-fixed offshore wind at scale in the Baltic Sea north of Gotland.
Depending on the final landfall and grid connection location, the Delta North offshore wind farm may be connected to hydrogen or e-fuel technologies, which provide grid stability by addressing any issues of intermittent power production from offshore wind.
The greater Stockholm region will have the potential to receive an annual production of approximately 8 TWh of electricity from Delta North, corresponding to 40 per cent of the current electricity consumption in Stockholm County, said Statkraft.
The wind farm would cater to the increasing electricity demand of the transport sector and the need to transition to a low-carbon industry to meet current climate targets.
According to the developer, the project would also address the imbalance of the Stockholm region, which only produces about a tenth of the electricity it consumes.
“There are three aspects that make the proposed Delta North windfarm unique. Firstly, it would lead to a proportionally vast increase in the electricity production in the Stockholm region to meet the high energy demand from consumers and industry alike”, said Jakob Norström, SVP Country Manager of Sweden.
“Secondly, the project has been developed to be of as little interference as possible to Stockholm’s famed archipelago, and we remain confident that the project has low to no visibility from land. Thirdly, the wind farm benefits from the more cost effective and mature technology of bottom-fixed turbine foundations. Neither of these aspects are unique by themselves, but the combination of all three in one project is.”
Another company, Eolus, submitted an application to the Swedish government for permission to build a 2.2 GW floating offshore wind farm in July this year.
The wind farm’s site is located 20 kilometres north of Gotska Sandön and about 100 kilometres southeast of Stockholm.
When it comes to Statkraft, the company is pursuing an industrial role in offshore wind in Northern Europe and has an ambition to develop 6-8 GW of offshore wind by 2040.
“Building on our Beta offshore wind farm application last year, the Delta application is one of more to come as we seek to position Sweden as a key offshore wind market in Northern Europe”, said David Flood, SVP of Offshore Wind.
