May 9, 2021

Green transition of power transmission system commenced in Denmark

Over the next 10-15 years, up to 100 substations must be retrofitted or rebuilt in Denmark to meet the drastically increasing power consumption and support the green transition. The total consultancy fee will amount to some €130 million. Danmark’s largest consultancy, Ramboll, has won the owner’s engineer contract with Danish Transmission System Operator (TSO) Energinet for the retrofit of the first three substations.

By 2035, the power consumption in Denmark is expected to increase by more than 100%, according to the Danish Energy Agency. The primary cause of this skyrocketing consumption is the electrification of the heat and transport sectors as well as large data centres.
The increasing consumption makes great demands on the ability of the power transmission system to transport the power in a stable and efficient manner from large solar power plants and offshore wind farms all the way to the consumers. One hundred substations located around the country play a leading role. They enable the power to find its way through the system from inbound to outbound cables. Today, they are outdated and face extensive upgrading and retrofitting to increase capacity and avoid that they become bottlenecks for the transmission of green wind and solar energy to the consumers.
So far, Energinet, which owns the transmission system, has managed the retrofit of the substations itself, but now Ramboll has been selected to handle the task for Energinet, including project management and implementation of all tasks in the retrofit of the three substations from design to commissioning.
Ten experts from Ramboll, which is the largest power system consultant in Denmark, will over the next 2.5 years work full-time on the project. The project is part of a €56 million framework contract that Energinet awarded to Ramboll last year.
The project is the start of a gigantic green transition of the power transmission system. Over the next 10-15 years, approx. 100 Danish substations must be retrofitted or rebuilt at a total consultancy fee of some €130 million.
“The project is part of an extensive and important upgrade of the power transmission system and is strategically important to us”, says John Ammentorp, Country Market Director for Ramboll’s energy division in Denmark. “As the first consultant in Denmark, we will handle the project from A to Z for Energinet and be responsible for both procurement, planning, health & safety, and construction management in addition to the traditional design of the substations. The upgrade of the substations must ensure that the system has the capacity required to transmit more green power in the future and in this way help Denmark achieve its target for a 70% reduction of its CO2-emissions by 2030”, he says.