TenneT awards €1.5bn for 4,900km HV grid connections in Germany and Netherlands
Dutch German TSO TenneT has signed a multi-year contract with eight contract partners for the supply and installation of cables for high-voltage AC connections in Germany and the Netherlands as DERs continue to proliferate the grid.
The so-called Corporate Framework Agreement includes connections for the 110, 150, 220 and 380kV onshore high-voltage AC connections to the power grid in Germany and the Netherlands on behalf of TenneT in the coming years.
The agreement aims to ensure the availability of materials and resources to realise the planned high-voltage projects on time.
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“In the coming years, we will construct some 900km of high-voltage in Germany and TenneT will realise some 4,000km of high-voltage in the Netherlands,” stated TenneT in a release, announcing the agreement.
The contract value of the award is €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion), of which one half is designated to investments in Germany and the other half to the Netherlands.
In the coming years, the following companies will supply the cables for TenneT’s projects:
- Brugg Kabel GmbH (Germany/Switzerland)
- LS Cable & System Ltd. (South Korea)
- NKT GmbH & Co. KG (Germany)
- Prysmian Netherlands B.V. (The Netherlands)
- Südkabel GmbH (Germany)
- Taihan Netherlands B.V. (The Netherlands/South Korea)
- TBEA Shandong Luneng Taishan Cable Co., Ltd. (China)
- TKF BV Twentsche Kabelfabriek (The Netherlands)
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Accommodating increasing connections
In announcing the cable supply, TenneT cites the increasing number of distributed energy resources (DERs) across the two countries: “The transition from fossil to renewable energy demands a lot from the power grid.
“Households are switching to heat pumps, roofs are full of solar panels, wind farms provide sustainably generated energy, and businesses and industry want to switch to electricity en masse.
“To meet this demand, TenneT has to substantially expand the high-voltage grid. This not only requires a lot of specialised work, such as engineering work, it also demands speed and simplification in the execution of projects.”
Within the Framework Agreements, states Tennet, suppliers know what their portfolio will look like in the coming years expediting project completion times.
“With that knowledge, market parties can stock up on standard materials. And although we have no obligation to purchase, this way we make it easier and more efficient for the projects.”
According to the TSO, selected projects can thus have their cables delivered on demand, saving just under six months.
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.