Amprion advances plans for German wind transmission corridors
Amprion advances plans for German wind transmission corridors | Windpower Monthly
The project will see two new 2GW underground cable connections transport electricity from the North Sea coast in Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony to the Ruhr area in 2030.
The transmission capacity can be increased by a further 4GW using additional empty pipes, Amprion said. With a total of up to 8GW of transport capacity, the project is a central component of Germany’s energy transition.
Amprion intends to commission the construction of the converters, which it says are worth a single-digit billion amount, by October 2024. The converters will be built in the vicinity of the network connection points Heide, Wilhelmshaven, Polsum and Hamm.
Amprion revealed plans in August for another transmission corridor, Windader West, which it hopes will bring another 8GW of offshore wind energy to North Rhine-Westphalia via four offshore grid connection systems.
The submarine cables originate in the North Sea and are bundled as underground cables from the coast to their network connection points in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.
The lines end at the Lower Rhine substations in Wesel (NOR-21-1), Kusenhorst between Dorsten, Marl and Haltern (NOR-15-1), Rommerskirchen in Bergheim (NOR-17-1) and Oberzier (NOR-19-1).
In 2032, the first 2GW of offshore power is expected to flow to North Rhine-Westphalia via a line on the West Windader. The remaining three lines are scheduled to go into operation in 2033, 2034 and 2036.
A converter station is required near the respective grid connection point, which converts the incoming direct current into alternating current and feeds it into the onshore power grid. Possible areas for the converter locations around the network connection points are currently being identified, the company said.
The spatial planning process for the four offshore connections has only just started with the Düsseldorf district government for North Rhine-Westphalia and the Weser-Ems regional development office for Lower Saxony. Public consultation is not expected to begin before 2024.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.