New Energy World™
New Energy World™ embraces the whole energy industry as it connects and converges to address the decarbonisation challenge. It covers progress being made across the industry, from the dynamics under way to reduce emissions in oil and gas, through improvements to the efficiency of energy conversion and use, to cutting-edge initiatives in renewable and low-carbon technologies.
Europe’s largest energy security of supply contract
3/5/2023
News
A €30bn contract has been signed to develop the North Sea as a hub for sustainable and independent European energy production, aimed at enhancing security of supply while supporting the energy transition and climate protection.
Transmission system operator TenneT, the Hitachi Energy/Petrofac cooperation and three consortium partnerships comprising GE/Sembcorp (SMOP), GE/McDermott and Siemens Energy/Dragados signed contracts toward the end of last month, sealing what is claimed to be Europe’s largest-ever tender award for energy transition infrastructure.
Covering 14 offshore grid connection systems of 2 GW each, and worth around €30bn, the project will lead to a transmission capacity of offshore wind energy in the German and Dutch North Sea that will generate as much electricity as 28 large-scale power plants, according to TenneT.
The transmission system operator had already awarded 11 offshore grid connection systems at the end of March, eight of them in the Netherlands and three in Germany. The addition of three more converter systems in Germany brings the total to 14, which are to be realised by 2031. The 2 GW HVDC systems for converting alternating current into direct current and back will be manufactured at a number of European production sites belonging to the consortia members.
The Siemens Energy/Dragados consortium has been awarded the contracts for the German projects BalWin3, LanWin4 (both with a connection to the onshore grid in Wilhelmshaven) and LanWin2 (with a connection near Heide). GE/McDermott is to build the relevant components for the German offshore projects BalWin4 and LanWin1, which will be connected in Unterweser.
Hitachi Energy/Petrofac has been awarded the contracts for five Dutch projects to be connected in Borssele (IJmuiden Ver Alpha, Nederwiek 1), Eemshaven (Doordewind 1 and Doordewind 2) and Geertruidenberg or Moerdijk (Nederwiek 3). This cooperation will also realise the German connection LanWin5, which is to be connected near Rastede.
GE/SMOP has been awarded three Dutch projects to be connected in the Maasvlakte, Rotterdam (IJmuiden Ver Beta, IJmuiden Ver Gamma and Nederwiek 2).
When Belgium, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands signed the Esbjerg Declaration at the North Sea Summit in May 2022, they agreed to jointly install a capacity of at least 65 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030. TenneT, which is Europe’s leading offshore transmission system operator, is to provide around two-thirds of this volume, or 40 GW of grid connections. To this end, it is building offshore grid connection systems with a total capacity of 20 GW each in Germany and the Netherlands.
In order to make Europe’s goal of securing an independent supply of renewable energies a reality, the North Sea ‘must be developed as Europe’s green powerhouse and quickly connected to the electricity grids on land’, said Tim Meyerjürgens, COO of TenneT at the contract signing, adding that the programme ‘will help make green wind energy from the North Sea scalable and more cost-efficient'.
Adding a large amount of offshore wind into the grid ‘will drive real change in the energy system, making it more sustainable, flexible and secure', noted Niklas Persson, Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Hitachi Energy’s Grid Integration business.
