Amprion has signed contracts for the civil engineering works for an underground onshore cable route, linking to offshore wind grid connections DolWin4 and BorWin4.
The German grid operator signed the €1.5bn agreement with a consortium of six civil engineering companies and a planning office.
As well as the 300 km cable route from A-Nord the companies will also be responsible for the civil engineering work for the more than 100 km of parallel section of the DolWin4 and BorWin4 offshore systems.
The A-Nord direct current connection will absorb around 2GW of wind power from the North Sea region in Emden and bring it to Meerbusch-Osterath near Düsseldorf.
The two offshore grid connection systems DolWin4 and BorWin4 start in the North Sea, cross the island of Norderney, land on the coast in Hilgenriedersiel in East Frisia, and finally continue as a land cable to the end point in Lingen-Hanekenfähr.
Together, the two systems have a transport capacity of approximately 1.8GW.
Since DolWin4 and BorWin4 run directly past the northern starting point of A-Nord on their route, all three lines between Emden and Lingen will be bundled in one route area and built together.
For the first time, Amprion is using an innovative contract concept in the form of Integrated Project Management (IPA).
One of the special features of this multi-party agreement is the remuneration structure with a bonus-malus regulation.
In this way, Amprion and the partners involved want to ensure maximum efficiency in construction and, if possible, accelerate it.
“The integrated project management ensures joint risk management and thus flexible processes in order to achieve our ambitious goal: to put the A-North direct current connection into operation in mid-2027,” said Hendrik Neumann, Technical Managing Director of Amprion.
It is important to Amprion to work with regional companies as much as possible in order to strengthen local and sustainable value chains.
Neumann added: “It is our task to implement the grid expansion projects as quickly as possible so that the climate neutrality grid is in place by 2045.
“The A-Nord project is an important component of this. With the IPA partnership, we have created a reliable foundation for this.”
The IPA partners are Amprion (Dortmund), Amprion Offshore (Dortmund), Bogenstahl Bauunternehmen (Legden), Bohlen & Doyen Bau (Wiesmoor), Fischer Teamplan Ingenieurbüro (Koblenz), Heitkamp & Hülscher (Stadtlohn), Heitkamp Erd- und Straßenbau (Herne), Rohrleitungsbau Niederrhein (Krefeld) and Klaus Stewering (Borken).