The Bornholm advantage

OPINION | As a young Air Force lieutenant in the 1980s, I was offered the choice of being stationed on Bornholm or at Skrydstrup, in southern Denmark. Bornholm didn’t say anything to me, so I chose Skrydstrup, which also had the advantage of being closer to my hometown of Esbjerg.

You get wiser with age, and, today, as the CEO of the Port of Rønne, I’m a lot wiser about the advantages Bornholm has over other parts of Denmark, both as a place to live and as a place to do business in the offshore industry.

Let’s start with location. Wind power is going to be a crucial part of our energy mix in the future, and offshore windfarms need to be able to provide electricity not just to power our homes, they also need to be able to power the production of the hydrogen that will replace fossil fuels.

The transition is already in full swing, but there is still huge potential—and need—for the expansion of offshore wind in the Baltic Sea.

Windfarms are cropping up all around our island. And, thanks to our location, the Port Rønne alone has been home port for five wind farms to date. More windfarms are on the way in the Baltic.

The next advantage we have on Bornholm is our underground. Thanks to the granite and limestone that lies beneath our feet, the Port of Rønne can establish facilities that can bear even the heaviest loads.

Port capacity is one of the most important factors in the green transition. And as the amount of activity at sea has increased, so too has the number of ships using the Port of Rønne. This is good news, but more traffic can quickly turn into a bottleneck. In an offshore perspective, the actions we take today will allow us to remain relevant for an off-shore wind industry that continues to erect bigger and bigger wind turbines.

For example, this coming December, the first of Vestas’s 15MW wind turbines are to be installed, and they will be shipped from the Port of Rønne. Vestas chose Bornholm because we have the capacity to handle a wind turbine that large and all of the components associated with it. In fact, the Port of Rønne is currently the only Baltic Sea port that can handle a wind turbine that large.

The third and final advantage Bornholm has is our ability to pull together and work as a team. Offshore Center Bornholm is case in point.

When I speak with the port’s offshore customers, they speak highly of the service and quality they receive from the companies associated with Offshore Center Bornholm. They tell me it makes doing their business easier, faster and less expensive. They tell me that the level of service they get from Offshore Center Bornholm is unparalleled.

All of us here on Bornholm should be proud when we hear something like that, and it should encourage us to continue the make the most of the advantages we have: central location, stable underground and the way work together.

Bornholm’s firms can do well on their own, but working together gives them an advantage. During the past decade, Offshore Center Bornholm has been a shining example of just this. I give them my congratulations and wish them the best for the future.

Lars Nordahl Lemvigh is the CEO of the Port of Roenne.

(Adapted from a speech delivered during Offshore Center Bornholm’s tenth anniversary celebration.)