Sustainable Energy

Novozymes and Novo Nordisk sign deal to source power from Denmark’s largest wind farm 

Key Points
  • The wind farm's 72 turbines will have a rotor diameter of 167 meters and weigh almost 900 tons each.
  • The facility, located in the Baltic Sea, is set to be in full operation by the end of 2021.
A wind turbine at the Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm, in the Irish Sea. With governments around the world attempting to ramp up their renewable energy capacity, the number of wind turbines worldwide only looks set to grow, which will in turn increase pressure on the sector to find sustainable solutions to the disposal of blades.
Ashley Cooper | Corbis Documentary | Getty Images

Novozymes and Novo Nordisk have signed an agreement to source power from Vattenfall’s Kriegers Flak offshore wind park, the Swedish utility said Friday.

The facility, located in the Baltic Sea, is set to be in full operation by the end of 2021. With a little over 600 megawatts of capacity, Vattenfall said that the Kriegers Flak site is set to be Denmark’s largest wind farm.

Global health care business Novo Nordisk employs around 42,100 people across 79 countries, while biotechnology firm Novozymes has more than 6,000 employees.  

While the deal between Vattenfall, Novozymes and Novo Nordisk will begin on January 1, 2020, Kriegers Flak is not set to be fully operational until the end of 2021. Until then, Novo Nordisk and Novozymes will source power from Vattenfall’s other Danish wind farms. 

“The agreement with Vattenfall moves Novo Nordisk one step closer to reaching our ambition: That all Novo Nordisk production facilities worldwide will run on renewable power by 2020,” Dorethe Nielsen, Novo Nordisk’s head of corporate environmental strategy, said in a statement. “With the Vattenfall agreement all of Novo Nordisk European production will run on renewable power,” Nielsen added.

Lene Aabo, Novozymes’ vice president for sourcing and facility management, said the new agreement would give the business “a stable supply of renewable power at competitive terms.”

The scale of Kriegers Flak is considerable. Its 72 turbines will have a rotor diameter of 167 meters and weigh almost 900 tons each. Europe is now home to more than 4,000 offshore wind turbines across 11 countries, according to trade body WindEurope.