Thisted Municipality

Thisted Municipality is co-founder of a new fund for wave energy plant

The fund will help to ensure that Hanstholm Harbour is an incubator and center for development and testing of wave energy plant in Denmark. Thisted City Council decided at the City Council meeting Tuesday 18 May unanimously in collaboration with Hanstholm Harbour Forum, Hanstholm Harbour and Aalborg University to start a fund: Danish Wave Energy Center (DanWEC). The fund’s objective is to develop, own, lease and operate facilities for testing, demonstration and knowledge capture for the development of wave energy plant in Denmark. The creation of DanWEC is consistent with Thisted Municipality’s vision of being Denmarks leading climate municipality.

Expected boom of jobs
Hanstholm Harbour is designated as the most suitable place in Denmark to place a possible future center for wave energy plants. The harbour already contains Wave Star, which was the first test site for wave energy in Denmark. The wave energy industry considers, that it - with the right investments - can create a new industry based on the many experiences that have been made with wind power. The industry estimates that within 10 to 20 years there may be more than 10,000 employees in wave energy sector in Denmark. Some of the jobs are allowed to be placed here in Northern Jutland. The fund is therefore supporting Thisted Municipality’s politic of enterprising by contributing to new jobs.

Applying for $5 million dollars in Climate and Energy Ministry
One of the fund’s first tasks will be to apply to the Climate and Energy Ministry for a grant of 30 million dollars to set up a test center. The Ministry has just launched a new initiative, Green Labs, which over three years will set aside $34,4 millions to support a smaller number of test facilities, where companies can demonstrate and test new green technologies with high growth potential.

Read more at www.danwec.com