Market profile

Denmark

The birthplace of offshore wind drew zero bids in 2024, redesigned the tender around a state price guarantee, and awarded 1.8 GW in August 2026.

established buildout: behind risk: medium outlook: mixed
2.6
GW operational
1.1
GW in construction
8.8
GW pipeline
25
projects
Operational · 2.6 GW (16)Under Construction · 1.1 GW (1)Early Development · 8.8 GW (5)On Hold · 0.7 GW (3)
Progress to target
29%
2.6 GW operational of 9 GW by 2030
2023 offshore expansion (>=9 GW additional by 2030)
Next auction round
Nordsøen Syd (North Sea South)
2028-H2 · tender · planned
1.0 GW offered
full auction outlook ↓

Assessment

as of 2026-09-11
Maturity

Established. Denmark built the world's first offshore wind farm and runs a long-standing state-tender regime, but its operating fleet, sixteen farms and about 2.6 GW in our records, is modest in absolute terms next to the UK or Germany. It is a deep, experienced market rather than a high-volume one. Until 2023 it also ran a parallel "open-door" track, where a developer that found a site effectively acquired the right to build it; that track closed in February 2023 after awarding without competition was assessed as a likely breach of EU state-aid law, and the farms left on it are stalled.

Buildout vs plan

Behind, but no longer stalled. In December 2024 Denmark offered three North Sea sites without subsidy, attaching a thirty-year annual concession payment for use of the seabed and mandatory 20% state co-ownership of each farm, and received no bids at all. The agency reopened the programme in November 2025 on different terms: a two-sided contract for difference with a state price guarantee, and no equity stake or concession payment. On 4 August 2026 it awarded two of the three sites to Vattenfall: North Sea I Mid, at least 1,000 MW, at DKK 504 per MWh against two bids, and Hesselø, at least 800 MW, at DKK 542 per MWh against five. The guarantee runs twenty years from completion. Our records still show neither farm's revenue as secured, because contract signature follows verification formalities after the award. Thor, at 1,080 MW the largest Danish farm yet, produced first power on 16 March 2026 and is expected to be fully operating in 2027. The third site, North Sea South, takes bids in October 2028.

Political & regulatory risk

Medium. Political commitment to offshore wind is genuine and the ambition is large, but both of Denmark's recent setbacks were design choices rather than failures of will: a risk-transfer package no bidder would accept, and an origination track the EU required it to close. Both have now been answered. The tender was redesigned and cleared, and the open-door farms sit outside the new route, unable to enter the tender that replaced it. The remaining question is budgetary rather than political: the redesigned programme carries a state payment ceiling, and the last site has to clear it in 2028.

Outlook

Mixed. The recovery is real: a redesigned tender cleared, 1.8 GW went to a single credible developer, and Thor is producing. But the 2023 political agreement's target of at least 9 GW of additional offshore wind operating before the end of 2030, a 6 GW radial programme plus the 3 GW Bornholm Energy Island, has been de-scoped in practice: the radial programme was re-cut to about 2.8 GW across three sites after the 2024 failure, the North Sea Energy Island has slipped toward 2036, and neither farm awarded in August 2026 is expected to operate before 2032. Denmark will keep building. It will not reach 2030 with the fleet it legislated for.

Risk, in one line

The 2024 failure and the 2026 recovery both turned on tender design rather than political will; the 2030 target has since been de-scoped in practice.

Sources

State of the market

as of 2026-10-13
38%
of GW sited through contested rounds
4 yr
median award → power
delivered (metered), 2026 to 13 Oct 2026Expected Buildout (confidence-weighted), 2026 the remainder of the yearfleet expected by year end
Annual additions · delivered to 13 Oct 2026, expected afterGW per year
00.511.5GW/yr202021222324252627282930313233343536373839400.60.30.50.40.10.00.00.00.00.51.21.20.80.40.20.10.1
Cumulative fleet · year endsGW operating
02468GW202021222324252627282930313233343536373839403.2 by year end1.72.6 on 13 Oct 20263.76.58.2

Delivered to 13 Oct 2026; expected from then. The 2026 column is 0.5 GW still expected this year, with nothing delivered so far. 11 GW of live pipeline weights to 5.6 GW expected to complete; 0.1 GW of that sits beyond 2040 and is not drawn. Projects on hold, and projects with no dated milestone, are modelled and sit in the expected line.

Source: Hafrok · hafrok.com/markets/denmark · data as of 13 Oct 2026

How this line is made

The Expected Buildout line answers one question: of the pipeline announced today, how much actually gets built, and when? It is not a scenario and not a target tracker; it is the database's live pipeline, passed through two filters measured from the industry's own delivery record.

Whether a project completes. Every project in development carries a completion weight, banded Delivering / Expected / Prospective / Fragile. A proposal (a site where no authority has yet granted rights) carries none and sits outside this line entirely; it is listed, not counted. The starting point is the historical completion rate of its lifecycle stage: of projects that reached construction, 97% delivered; financed but not yet building, 92%; consented without financing, 75%; early development, 61%; on hold, 15%. That base rate is then adjusted by what the project has actually secured (offtake, grid, consents, investment decision) and decays if a project sits quiet past its stage's normal dwell time.

When it delivers. Each project also carries a completion-date distribution: a shape, not a single year, right-skewed because offshore wind slips late far more often than it runs early. The peak sits on a rule-based expected date chained from the project's latest achieved milestone; the width of the late tail is fitted to how far past their announced dates real projects actually landed: builders slip tight (60% on time, n=144), financed projects tighter still (76%, n=95), consented-only projects carry the fat tail, with 21% landing three or more years late (n=126). A stated date faster than any comparable project has ever achieved is floored to the achievable window and flagged, never taken at face value.

The line is the sum, across every live project, of capacity × completion weight × the probability it delivers in each year. For projects already under construction, a share of expected capacity is counted at first power, because turbines start generating before a wind farm is fully commissioned, so a market's chart can show capacity arriving a year before a project's stated completion date. Delivered history is metered fact; the line inherits every assumption above and nothing else.

Honest limits. The weights are calibrated on a fleet whose failures have so far been overwhelmingly pre-financing, so completion rates after FID rest on a record with few failures and are ceilings, not guarantees. The slip fitted on consented projects is the loosest (the "three or more years late" bucket spans many years). Policy shocks arrive faster than base rates move; the weights see a stop-work order only as its lifecycle consequences accrue. And the line redistributes as the database learns: it is re-derived on every data refresh, not frozen.

Full per-project workings (each project's weight, band, expected date and distribution) are on its project page. Calibration v2.0-phase0 · generated 2026-10-13; every figure above is read from the generated calibration file, never typed.

Auction outlook

forecast · 2 rounds tracked
Seabed leaseOfftake awardIntegrated tenderscheduled: bar spans the expected windowplanned (indicative)postponed / suspendedno date yet (off-axis)
202720282029todayPLANNED · INDICATIVENordsøen Syd (North Sea South) · 2028-H2 · planned · 1 GW offeredNordsøen Syd (North Sea South) · 1 GW
NO DATE YETBornholm Energy Island (3 GW) · planned
Integrated tender Nordsøen Syd (North Sea South) planned
What the date rests on — announced

Later phase of the redesigned programme; bid deadline October 2028 (firmed from "autumn 2028" by the 4 Aug 2026 award release: "budfrist i oktober 2028"); completion end-2034. CfD cap DKK 8.2bn.

Integrated tender Bornholm Energy Island (3 GW) planned
What the date rests on — indicative

Baltic energy island, 3 GW; DK-DE bilateral investment agreement 26 Jan 2026; commissioning mid-2030s. The wind-generation tender date is not officially fixed (project firmer than the tender date). NB the larger North Sea Energy Island (up to 10 GW) is POSTPONED (~2036).

Source: Hafrok · hafrok.com/markets/denmark · data as of 13 Oct 2026

Origination ladder

settled rounds → projects
Seabed leaseOfftake awardIntegrated tenderbirth award (colour = round type)no auction award on record (the chapter names how the site originated)offtake / tender winterminated award / cancelledFIDCOD achievedCOD expected (dashed = still to run)on hold
199519952000200020052005201020102015201520202020202520252030203020352035OPEN DOOR — DEVELOPER-INITIATED SITESTuno Knob · 5 MW · Operational · COD 1995 · No auction award on record · open doorTuno Knob19955 MWMiddelgrunden · 40 MW · Operational · COD 2001 · No auction award on record · open doorMiddelgrunden200140 MWHorns Rev 1 · 158 MW · Operational · COD 2002 · No auction award on record · open doorHorns Rev 12002158 MWNysted (Rodsand 1) · 166 MW · Operational · COD 2003 · No auction award on record · open doorNysted (Rodsand 1)2003166 MWRonland · 17 MW · Operational · COD 2003 · No auction award on record · open doorRonland200317 MWSamso · 23 MW · Operational · COD 2003 · No auction award on record · open doorSamso200323 MWSprogo · 21 MW · Operational · COD 2009 · No auction award on record · open doorSprogo200921 MWAflandshage · 286 MW · On Hold · outlook: Fragile · No auction award on record · open doorAflandshage—286 MWJammerland Bugt · 240 MW · On Hold · outlook: Fragile · No auction award on record · open doorJammerland Bugt—240 MWLillebælt Syd · 165 MW · On Hold · outlook: Fragile · No auction award on record · open doorLillebælt Syd—165 MWDEMONSTRATIONS & PILOTSFrederikshavn · 8 MW · Operational · COD 2003 · No auction award on record · demonstrationFrederikshavn20038 MWAvedore Holme · 11 MW · Operational · COD 2011 · No auction award on record · demonstrationAvedore Holme201111 MWNissum Bredning Vind · 28 MW · Operational · COD 2018 · No auction award on record · demonstrationNissum Bredning Vind201828 MWHORNS REV 2 TENDER · 2005Horns Rev 2 · 209 MW · Operational · COD 2009 · Rounds: dk-horns-rev-2-2005Horns Rev 22009209 MWRØDSAND 2 RE-TENDER · 2008Rodsand 2 · 207 MW · Operational · COD 2010 · Rounds: dk-rodsand-2-2008Rodsand 22010207 MWANHOLT HAVMØLLEPARK TENDER · 2010Anholt · 400 MW · Operational · COD 2013 · Rounds: dk-anholt-2010Anholt2013400 MWHORNS REV 3 OFFSHORE WIND TENDER · 2015Horns Rev 3 · 407 MW · Operational · COD 2019 · Rounds: dk-horns-rev-3Horns Rev 32019407 MWVESTERHAV NORD & SYD (DANISH NEAR-SHORE TENDER) · 2016Vesterhav Nord & Syd · 344 MW · Operational · COD 2024 · Rounds: dk-vesterhav-near-shoreVesterhav Nord & Syd2024344 MWKRIEGERS FLAK OFFSHORE WIND TENDER · 2016Kriegers Flak · 604 MW · Operational · COD 2021 · Rounds: dk-kriegers-flakKriegers Flak2021604 MWTHOR OFFSHORE WIND TENDER · 2021Thor · 1.08 GW · Under Construction · outlook: Delivering · COD expected 2027 · Rounds: dk-thorThor2027e1.08 GWNORDSØEN MIDT (NORTH SEA MID) — RE-TENDERED CFD ROU… · 2026Nordsøen Midt · 1 GW · Early Development · outlook: Expected · COD expected 2032 · Rounds: dk-nordsoen-midtNordsøen Midt2032e1 GWHESSELØ (KATTEGAT) — RE-TENDERED CFD ROUND · 2026Hesselø · 800 MW · Early Development · outlook: Expected · COD expected 2032 · Rounds: dk-hesseloHesselø2032e800 MW

Source: Hafrok · hafrok.com/markets/denmark · data as of 13 Oct 2026

3 sites designated for forecast rounds (7 GW) are not in the history ladder — pre-tender zones are the auction outlook's rounds-in-waiting: Bornholm Energy Island · Nordsøen Syd · North Sea Energy Island.