Success by Design: The Need for an Adaptive Risk Governance Framework for the Danish Energy Island Program
We have published a Whitepaper as a contribution to the discussion around professionalizing the risk management of our Energy Island Program. You can download it here:
Kozin, I., Oehmen, J., & Robert Taylor, J. (2023). Success by Design: The Need for an Adaptive Risk Governance Framework for the Danish Energy Island Program: Whitepaper. Centre of Maritime Health and Society. https://orbit.dtu.dk/files/317267161/white_paper_for_print_30_03_2023_1_.pdf
Excerpt from the introduction:
The construction of the Energy Islands on Bornholm in the Baltic Sea and in the North Sea, approximately 80 km from Thorsminde, a town on the cost of western Jutland, are one of the world’s most ambitious green energy programs. The Islands will serve as hubs for connecting and distributing power from the surrounding offshore wind farms (OWF) to several countries. It is expected to have an initial capacity of 3 GW of offshore wind and later reach full capacity at 10 GW for the island in the North Sea, which will be the first of several hubs in the North Sea that is planned to be put into operation in 2033 [1].
Given the scale of the new system and outstanding challenges, the time window of 10 years is rather narrow to design, build and guarantee that risks to health, safety, environment, assets, cost, and uninterrupted electricity supply are under control for the whole lifetime of +80 years. The consequences of failing to predict and manage the risks of complex global systems, like the Energy Island and connected to it systems, can be immense. The Island will have broad social impact and deficits in risk governance that, in particular, do not properly account for the diversity of different values of involved stakeholders may result in loss of credibility in management institutions.
Insufficiently managed risks - from health & safety to cost - can bring the largest engineering programs to a sudden halt: For good reason, injuries, and deaths on construction sites and during operations are unacceptable – both from an ethical as well from a legal and reputational point of view. And we can expect significant public scrutiny regarding promised budgets, schedules, and technical performance.