The amount of electricity transmitted to shore by Tennet from German North Sea offshore wind farms almost hit 10 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half (H1) of 2019.
In the German-Dutch grid operator’s latest figures, transmission of 9.51TWh marked a 16% increase compared with H1 2018, of 8.17TWh.
Tennet chief operations officer Tim Meyerjurgens said: “We saw the share of power transmission from the North Sea stabilise at about 15% of total wind power generation in Germany, which reached almost 64TWh in the first half of 2019.”
Recently Tennet awarded a contract for the construction of the 900MW DolWin5 offshore grid hub in the German North Sea, achieving a cost saving of around 10% compared with its predecessor DolWin6.
“Thanks to the standardisation of offshore grid connection systems that we have been promoting, it has also been possible to achieve a lower cable price compared with the previous projects,” Meyerjurgens added.
Tennet’s project pipeline of connections in planning as well as under construction will increase offshore transmission capacity in the German part of the North Sea to nearly 9GW by 2024.
However, commenting on the current rate of offshore development in Europe, Meyerjurgens said offshore wind ambition in Europe needs to increase if the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement are to be reached.
“An accelerated and large-scale expansion is necessary, ” he said.
Tennet recently presented a feasibility study by the North Sea Wind Power Hub consortium for the implementation of wind energy in distributed hubs in the North Sea.
“An internationally coordinated approach in the future could implement the connection and integration of a large expansion of offshore wind energy more effectively and at significantly lower costs of up to 30%, compared with continued individual national planning,” Meyerjurgens said.
According to the approach laid out by the consortium, up to 180GW of offshore wind capacity could be developed cost-effectively by 2045.