Replacement scheme for wind turbines on land

A scrapping certificate can be earned by replacing old and inappropriately situated wind turbines with new and more efficient turbines. This grants the right to an extra price supplement.

The energy policy agreement of 29 March 2004 between Denmark’s Liberal Party, the Conservative People's Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist People’s Party, the Social Liberal Party and Kristendemokraterne (the Christian Democrats) on wind energy and decentralised combined heat and power etc. is the background for the scrapping scheme. According to the agreement, the scheme was introduced so that the expansion of wind power could take place along with the decommissioning of older and less appropriately sited wind turbines.

The scrapping scheme provides an extra price supplement to new onshore wind turbines, provided the owner has a scrapping certificate for a wind turbine with an installed capacity of 450kW or less, which was decommissioned in the period 15 December 2004 to 15 December 2010.

The price supplement is granted to factory new wind turbines, grid connected in the period 1 January 2005 to 31 December 2010.

As a consequence of the energy policy agreement of 21 February 2008 between Denmark’s Liberal Party, the Conservative People's Party, the Social Democratic Party, the Socialist People’s Party, the Social Liberal Party and New Alliance (now Liberal Alliance) on Danish energy policy for the years 2008-2011, the scrapping scheme was prolonged so that scrapping certificates can still be earned until 15 December 2010 for new wind turbines grid connected before 31 December 2010.

The price supplement is DKK 0.12 per kWh and is granted for electricity production corresponding to 12,000 full-load hours for double the installed capacity of the decommissioned wind turbine. However, if the total amount of this price supplement of DKK 0.12 per kWh, the market price and the ordinary price supplement of DKK 0.10 per kWh exceeds DKK 0.48 per kWh, the price supplement of DKK 0.12 per kWh will be reduced.

The energy policy agreement of 21 February 2008 moreover means that wind turbines connected to the grid on 21 February 2008 or later are granted an extra price supplement of DKK 0.08 per kWh for electricity production corresponding to 12,000 full-load hours for double the amount of the installed capacity of the decommissioned wind turbine. The price supplement is fixed so that it is granted irrespective of the spot market price.

Owners of wind turbines grid connected from 21 February 2008 until and including 31 December 2010 may, instead of the price supplement of DKK 0.08 per kWh, choose to receive a price supplement of DKK 0.12 per kWh, provided the sum of the price supplement and the spot market price on a monthly basis do not exceed a limit of DKK 0.38 per kWh.

The scrapping certificates are issued by the system operator which is Energinet.dk.

Scrapping certificates may only be issued within a pool which corresponds to a total capacity of decommissioned wind turbines of 175MW. The system operator will publish a list regularly of the number of certificates which have been issued and the number of advance commitments which have been given.

For more information on this see Energinet.dk’s guidelines for issuing and processing scrapping certificates etc. Follow this link for more information