Investments in offshore wind farms and grid infrastructure will only be made on a large scale if electricity can be marketed beyond “limited national markets”, 50Hertz’s CEO told the audience at the first Baltic Sea Conference.
The conference was held by 50Hertz in cooperation with the State of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Royal Danish Embassy and the World Energy Council.
50Hertz’s CEO Stefan Kapferer said that point-to-point connections will soon reach their limits when it comes to financing large offshore projects.
“Countries like Denmark have recognised that exporting green electricity is of great benefit to their economies,” he said.
“And the way to achieve this is through hybrid systems that transport wind power in several directions as required and make the electricity available to the European market as a whole.”
50Hertz presented a position paper at the conference which included proposals around legal regulations for hybrid offshore systems, greater standardisation of technology, more flexibility in planning and approval procedures and the consideration of forward-looking investment planning in the national and European regulatory systems.
50Hertz said it sees considerable advantages in “meshing”, i.e. a technical networking of wind farms and substation platforms at sea or on land.
They cited benefits including CO2 savings and optimal utilisation of electricity generation by offshore wind turbines, increased economic efficiency and more economical use of resources as well as fewer interventions in partially sensitive ecosystems of the sea.
Energy security and build out of renewables were discussed at the event.
In her welcoming address, the Danish ambassador to Germany, Susanne Hyldelund, spoke about the current geo-political situation created by Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“Russian natural gas was firmly planned to build a bridge to the green future. This bridge has now collapsed.
“We must therefore rethink the energy transition and think more European than before,” she said.
Jennifer Morgan, state secretary at the Federal Foreign Office and Special Representative for International Climate Policy, also called for an international and long-term view of the energy supply and climate crisis.
“The energy transition is a central element of European security policy. It is a transformative task that requires radical cooperation between politics, business and administration,” she said.
More than 100 experts from politics, business and associations attended the event and discussed how offshore wind energy potential of the Baltic Sea with a size of over 90 gigawatts (GW) can be developed as efficiently as possible.