Hitachi Energy has signed over €2bn worth of contracts with German transmission system operator Amprion for four converter stations for two high voltage direct current links.
The orders follow from a September 2023 capacity reservation agreement under which Hitachi was selected as the preferred supplier for four converter statons at grid connection points in Heide, Wilhelmshaven, Polsum, and Hamm.
The HVDC links, known as V48 and V49, form Korridor B – a high-power transmission highway that will bring clean energy from onshore and offshore wind farms in the North, helping to replace the conventional power generation currently used to power the industrial load centers in the West.
Amprion CTO Hendrik Neumann said: “With Korridor B, we will make an important contribution to the security of supply in Germany and Europe in the future.
“The project will transport green electricity to millions of households and industry in North Rhine-Westphalia from as early as the beginning of the 2030s.”
“Without the grid capacity to move wind energy from the north to areas that are still highly reliant on fossil fuels in the south and west, the country cannot achieve decarbonization within the targeted timeframe,” said Niklas Persson, Managing Director of Business Unit Grid Integration at Hitachi Energy.
Korridor B comprises two new underground cable connections, each with two converter stations, which transport electricity from the North Sea coast in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony to the Ruhr region.
The contracts from Amprion also include Hitachi Energy’s EnCompass offering, a long-term service agreement that underlines the company’s commitment to trusted long-term partnerships and builds on its proven track record of delivering innovative and reliable energy service solutions.
Under the contracts, Hitachi Energy will supply, install, and commission two HVDC Light® converter systems capable of transmitting 2 GW of power. The converters will operate at 525 kilovolts (kV), the voltage level adopted as the standard for the latest generation of HVDC links.
The converter stations are scheduled to start operation in early 2030.