TenneT Starts Tendering Procedure for 2 GW German Offshore Grid Connections

Contracts & Tenders

February 23, 2022, by Adnan Durakovic

Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT has launched tendering procedures for the sea and land stations of BalWin1, BalWin2, and BalWin3 grid connections in the North Sea off Lower Saxony, each with a transmission capacity of 2 GW.

The contracts for all three projects have a combined order volume in the seven-digit range and are expected to be awarded in the third quarter of 2023. Effective immediately, bidders can qualify for the tender process, TenneT said.

The first three German 2 GW projects will be part of TenneT’s transnational 2GW Program. The new offshore standard will offer more than twice the transmission capacity of the 900 MW systems that have been common in Germany to date.

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Since this will allow the same amount of electricity to be transmitted with only half as many grid connections, it will be possible to conserve important resources and minimise environmental impacts, TenneT said. Harmonising the systems in terms of technology and planning will also make it possible to put additional grid connections systems in place even faster than before. In this way, the 2GW Program will make wind energy from the North Sea scalable and the supply of green electricity more cost-efficient.

”The 2GW Program will be a key pillar of our offshore strategy while helping to advance the energy transition in Europe more quickly and efficiently,” said Tim Meyerjürgens, Chief Operating Officer of TenneT.

”After a successful launch in the Netherlands and with the call for tenders for the converter stations of our BalWin projects, we are now also putting grid expansion in the German North Sea on course for climate neutrality.”

The call for tenders encompasses the newly developed offshore platforms, the land stations, and the associated equipment for the new two-gigawatt high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission technology.

As part of the 2GW Program, at least six offshore grid connection systems – each with a transmission capacity of 2 GW wind energy from the North Sea – are to be built in Germany and the Netherlands by 2030, with three of them being in the German BalWin cluster off the coast of Lower Saxony.

With a total capacity of 6 GW, BalWin1, BalWin2, and BalWin3 will contribute 20 per cent to the raised offshore expansion target of Germany’s new federal government by 2030.