EnBW Fights for Offshore Wind Network Connection

On the recommendation of the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf, EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG and German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), in consultation with the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), have entered into an arrangement with respect to the capacity allocation for German offshore wind farms.

The reason for this decision was an urgent motion by EnBW against the capacity allocation process.

EnBW had complained in October against the way the Federal Network Agency intended to carry out the capacity allocation, following the Agency’s launch of a capacity displacement procedure in late August.

The connection capacity availability of the BorWin 3 network connection was reduced from 850 megawatts to only 450 megawatts by this procedure, EnBW claims. Thus, auctioning the grid connection capacity would become necessary only in this connection cluster.

The Federal Network Agency, in addition to a short-term capacity allocation for EnBW’s offshore wind farm Hohe See, has bound to bring up more free capacity at the end of the first quarter of 2015, so that EnBW could apply to an invitation for tender for more capacity allocation in the network cluster 8. In return, EnBW has agreed to withdraw its appeal.

Offshore WIND Staff; Image: EnBW