Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has approved the offshore grid connection system for TenneT’s BorWin5 and BorWin epsilon in the German North Sea.
This marks the last project to be implemented based on the specifications of the Federal Offshore Plan 2017 for the North Sea.
The area development plan, which has been creating the conditions for an orderly and synchronous expansion of offshore wind and the associated grid connections since 2019, applies to all upcoming projects.
The planning approval decision covers the BorWin epsilon converter platform and the submarine transmission cable BorWin5. It connects the He Dreiht offshore wind farm with an output of 960MW to the power grid.
The converter platform will be located in the middle of the site around 100km north-west of Norderney and 10km east of the existing Bard Offshore 1 project.
The offshore wind farm supplies 66kV three-phase current directly to the converter platform via submarine cables without its own transformer platform.
The area development plan is currently being updated to meet the federal government’s expansion target of at least 70GW of offshore wind energy by 2045.
“The BSH is thus making a significant contribution to achieving the federal government’s expansion goals for offshore wind energy,” stated BSH president Helge Heegewaldt.