Denmark is creating one of the world's first energy islands. The purpose of these offshore facilities is to exploit the vast wind resources in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. The energy islands will serve as a hub for establishing better links between energy generated by offshore wind and the energy systems in the region around the two seas.

The Nordic country is now making these energy islands into digital hubs as well. It has contracted Ørsted, ATP and GlobalConnect to turn the North Sea Energy Island into a hub in the digitisation of Northern Europe and attract large-scale digital investments to Denmark.

Ørsted builds, operates, and maintains offshore and onshore wind farms, solar farms, energy storage facilities, and bioenergy plants, while ATP is Denmark's largest pension fund. With more than 100,000 km of fibre across the region, GlobalConnect provides connectivity services.

Ørsted and ATP want to make the North Sea Energy Island more than an offshore energy facility. A modular design will help make it a future-proof and innovative piece of Danish infrastructure that will be at the center of one of the world's largest offshore networks for green energy. The North Sea Energy Island has signed an agreement with GlobalConnect to become a cross-border digital hub. It is anticipated that this will be a major chance to deliver on the future digitisation agenda of Northern Europe. The country also hopes that it will be a key enabler to attract large-scale investments in digital infrastructure, including data centers.

Scandinavian countries have become home to some of the world's largest tech companies in recent years. In order to meet the demands of the tech giants and society's growing demand for fast and secure internet connections, Nordic and European countries need to build high-capacity and secure digital infrastructure. North Sea Energy Island's proximity to large-scale emission-free energy and GlobalConnect's digital backbone could therefore attract significant investments to Denmark. The smart energy island will also play an important role in the next stages of the offshore wind build-out by enabling autonomous operations and further digitizing offshore wind.

Photo credit: Ørsted