Tender 2GW high voltage stations big step towards 2050 climate neutral Europe
TenneT recently announced to start the tender of the stations (Platform & HVDC system) of the Dutch IJmuiden Ver offshore wind projects. With this tender, TenneT enters the next phase for the innovative 2GW projects in the IJmuiden Ver wind area.
It is expected that this contract will be awarded by the end of 2022. Recently the engineering for the land station was tendered and the cable contract will follow later this year. The first 2GW IJmuiden Ver connection is planned to be operational in 2028.
Marco Kuijpers, Director Large Projects Offshore at TenneT, says, “Wind energy from the North Sea plays the crucial role in realising the ambitious offshore wind goals for the Netherlands and Europe. Households and certainly heavy users such as the industry need to electrify. TenneT’s experience in offshore grid development combined with the expertise and insight of market partners have resulted in the 2GW grid connection that will play a very important role in unlocking the North Sea Power House as the source of sustainable energy for not only the Netherlands and Germany, but in fact all of Northwest Europe.”
Together with market parties, TenneT developed a new 2GW standard to be able to accelerate offshore wind deployment. The new standard aims to further reduce the costs of offshore wind and to minimise the spatial and environmental impact. The new 2GW standard will more than double the capacity in comparison to the previous 900MW HVDC standard and almost triple the 700MW AC standard. The new transmission standard supports the essential next step towards larger offshore wind farms and a North Sea wide European Hub-and-Spoke system – combining wind power connection, coupling of energy markets through interconnection and smart integration into the main onshore grids. As part of this development, the Dutch IJmuiden Ver projects will be hub ready to connect a future multi-purpose interconnector (WindConnector) to the UK.