The increasing demand for renewable energy puts pressure on the energy sector to increase efficiency without compromising on safety and protection of vulnerable species and ecosystems. By integrating data and knowledge of the natural world with technology and training, DHI helps clients in the energy sector comply with regulations and achieve operational efficiency, safety for employees and protection of local ecosystems.
DHI has state-of-the-art test facilities at our headquarters in Denmark that are used to reduce design risks in major energy projects. DHI's wave pool lab is unique in hydraulic testing, and we have 60 years of experience in physical model tests and numerical tools for infrastructure development in the offshore energy sector. Several major infrastructure works, including those from 2023, were given final shape here based on the laboratory results.
DHI’s solutions for the energy sector combine knowledge of natural processes with models and data. Model results become solutions designed to cope with future climate and development needs.
Our solutions include:
Offshore wind – Identification of new offshore wind farm opportunities and evaluation of potential environmental impacts with high-quality data, modelling tools and detailed analyses, enabling clients to ease approval processes, prevent operational hiccups and reduce investment risks. Using our expertise within engineering, metocean services, water environments and ports and terminals infrastructure to support the expansion, installation and continuation of offshore wind services. DHI has contributed to more than 80% of commissioned offshore wind farms worldwide
Carbon capture and storage – DHI provides seabed analyses, risk assessment and modelling of potential CO2 leakage from aquifers to be used for the environmental impact assessment of projects. We also develop software tools for assessing the possible impact to the marine ecosystem as a result of CO2 releases from CCS operations and during storage. Our activities also include biological monitoring of sediments in the vicinity of sites
Geothermal energy – DHI’s modelling and visualisation solutions allow for 3D representation models, using sub-surface simulators, advanced algorithms and 3D meshing. These models are crucial for recognising the geothermal potential and will determine the feasibility of achieving carbon-neutral energy production in an area using geothermal
Oil and gas development – Solutions include metocean data, forecast of wind, waves, water levels and currents, online monitoring, physical model testing, hydrodynamic load and response analysis for both fixed and floating structures and Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs)
30 years of data from the North Sea
In 2023, we announced that DHI will publish more than 30 years of data on environment and biodiversity trends in the North Sea on an open portal named
the North Sea Environment Portal funded by TotalEnergies Denmark. The project is done in collaboration with the Danish Underground Consortium (DUC). The aim is to create the best possible basis for developing robust plans to protect the marine environment.
‘We find that transparent and open access to information is crucial for creating action and accelerating the work to safeguard the state of the marine environment and biodiversity’, says Mikael Kamp Sørensen, Executive Vice President for DHI's Energy & Ports business unit. With the expected expansion of wind farms, CO2 storage and many other offshore activities, our goal is that other stakeholders in the North Sea will make use of the portal and contribute by adding more data.
Energy island model built at DHI DHI also welcomed a visit to our headquarters in Denmark from the Belgian Minister of Energy, Tinne Van der Straeten, who came to see the large-scale model of the world’s first renewable energy island,
the Princess Elisabeth Island. The Belgian energy island will be an extension of the electricity grid in the North Sea, connect wind farms from the sea to the mainland and create new connections with select countries.
‘We want to take physical model testing into the future. The tests that we can do at our unique test facilities reveal details that simulations simply cannot do’, explains Karsten Lindegaard Jensen, Director of Offshore Wind – Marine and Hydraulic Structures at DHI. At 8.6 by 3.8 metres, the scale model of the Princess Elisabeth Island (1/60) was one of the largest ever built in DHI’s wave basins, and the experts at DHI tested the resistance of the design against current and waves.