Offshore wind farms in the western part of the German North Sea should be connected to the mainland grid via the Netherlands, according to transmission system operator TenneT.
A connection to Eemshaven would be a cost-efficient solution for future wind farms that would require 100km less onshore cabling and save some €200m, the TSO said.
Linking to the Netherlands would also avoid onshore grid bottlenecks in the north-west of Germany, TenneT added.
Germany and the Netherlands would need to sign a treaty to make sure the grid hub is built under German offshore wind rules, the TSO said.
TenneT further proposes to sell some 660MW of capacity available at the DolWin 6 grid hub in an additional auction. Dolwin 6 is slated to go online in 2023.
Orsted secured some 242MW for its Gode Wind 3&4 complex at the 900MW grid hub in Germany’s 2017 and 2018 auctions, but the remainder is yet to be secured.
Meanwhile, in the first half of 2018 offshore wind farms in the North Sea fed some 8.17 terawatt-hours of electricity to the German grid, up from 7.77TWh in 2017, TenneT said.
Power exported from wind farms in the North Sea accounted for 15.1% of Germany’s 54 gigawatt-hours of total wind power produced in the first half of 2018.
Image: reNEWS
German offshore ‘should go Dutch’
By EBS