BRUSSELS — A group of Danish renewable energy companies is threatening to take the European Commission to court over its approval of a €5 billion ($5.8 billion) project to support offshore wind energy.
The Commission announced Monday that it had green-lighted Denmark’s plans to subsidize the construction and operation of two offshore wind farms, Hesselø and North Sea I Mid, representing around 25 percent of last year’s total electricity production in the country. The approval was granted under the Clean Industrial Deal State Aid Framework (CISAF).
“In Denmark, 11 developers of onshore renewable energy have decided to lodge a complaint against the Commission’s decision,” according to a joint statement from European Energy and Eurowind Energy, two of the manufacturers of renewable energy technologies.
“We regret that the European Commission has now given the green light to the Danish offshore wind tender, as this decision will be detrimental to the development of market-based renewable energy,” said Andreas Karhula Lauridsen, a senior vice president and head of North Europe and offshore at European Energy.
