Transmission system operator TenneT during the first half of 2020 transported 11.5TWh of electricity to shore from German North Sea wind farms, over 21% more than a year earlier.
Power transmission from the North Sea accounted for 15.6% of the country’s overall wind power generation, which reached 73.7TWh during the period, TenneT said.
Adding the 2.22TWh transmitted by TSO 50Hertz from Baltic Sea wind farms, German offshore wind arrays generated a total of 13.73TWh during the first half of 2020.
“The expansion and integration of offshore wind energy is of central importance for the European energy transition,” TenneT chief operating officer Tim Meyerjürgens said.
“With Borssele Alpha and – from mid-August – Borssele Beta, we have now also successfully completed the first two offshore connections in the Dutch North Sea,” he added.
“We are making consistent progress in the key areas of innovation, standardisation and cost efficiency. Ever since TenneT set the standard for plastic-insulated direct current cables at 320 kilovolts (kV) in the offshore sector around ten years ago, we have been defining a new global benchmark for the future with our 525-kV direct current subsea cable system and its transmission capacity of two gigawatts (GW).”
TenneT said it is creating a standardised cable system to be used in three more German projects (BalWin1, 2 and 3) as well as in two Dutch grid links (Ijmuiden Ver alpha and beta) by 2030.
“We have an investment programme of around €20bn earmarked for connecting offshore wind energy in the Netherlands and Germany by 2030. More than half of it will be assigned to the new 2GW standard,” Meyerjürgens said.
By 2030, TenneT aims to have grid-connected 17GW of offshore wind capacity in Germany, and 9.6GW in the Netherlands. The company’s current offshore transmission capacity in the German North Sea stands at 7.1GW.
The TSO said it is also following various hydrogen-related projects with great interest, especially when it comes to the clarification of the legal framework for them.
The company has proposed wind power hubs in the North Sea to connect offshore wind farms from various countries, which would include the use of hydrogen.
