Hybrid interconnector projects in North Sea and Baltic Sea beef up Europe’s green energy ties

The European Union (EU) is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to reinforce its decarbonization progress and shore up renewables and low-carbon technologies to hasten the shift from fossil fuels to green power in the energy ecosystem. In a bid to add more fuel to the energy transition flames, the European Commission (EC) has included multiple hybrid interconnector projects in the North Sea and Baltic Sea among the proposed cross-border energy infrastructure projects, which underpin the EU’s climate and net zero drive. These projects will enable the EU to harness more offshore wind power.

Recently, the European Commission proposed 166 cross-border energy infrastructure projects to lend a helping hand in decarbonizing the EU’s energy system and tilt the policy and investment landscape from fossil fuels to renewables, so that, the current net zero targets can be met. The list of projects of common interest (PCI) within the EU territory and projects of mutual interest (PMIs) with other countries covers grid upgrades and the build-out of more hydrogen, green electricity, and carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS).

Thanks to these projects, the EU may double its grid capacity by 2030 and meet its 42.5% renewable energy aspiration. While the major slice of the PCI and PMI pie is all about electricity, grid projects, and hydrogen to modernize power networks and bring new energy storage facilities, the list entails 12 offshore hybrid and radial projects in the North Sea, the Baltic Sea, and the Atlantic, illustrating the key decarbonization role of electrification and offshore grid build-out for the EU’s energy sector revamp.

The European Commission sees the electricity transmission and distribution grids, which represent the veins of the energy system, as “the missing links of the clean energy transition.” As a result of the EU’s mission to build up its green electricity potential and foster closer energy bonds, three hybrid interconnector projects have been designated as projects of common interest, giving them the status of particularly important infrastructure projects of interest to the entire Europe and allowing them to seek financial support from the EU.

Following the European Commission’s adoption, the PCI and PMI list was submitted to the European Parliament and the European Council for their scrutiny. The duo has two months to either accept or reject the list in full but may not amend it. However, the process can be extended by two additional months, if requested. After the list is endorsed, the EC will work with project promoters and member states to support its rapid implementation.

One of the offshore hybrid interconnector projects, which the European Commission has proposed as PCIs, is TritonLink. This is an offshore hybrid interconnector project that will link the high-voltage grids in Belgium and Denmark through two energy islands in the North Sea. The feasibility study for the TritonLink hybrid interconnector was completed recently. This project is included in Belgium’s Federal Development Plan 2024-2034, setting out future infrastructure investments that need to be made.

A few months ago, Danish and Belgian transmission system operators (TSOs), Energinet and Elia, picked Arcadis Nederland for marine consultancy services regarding the offshore route development of the TritonLink. This deal encompasses route development, permit planning, and support throughout the whole project up to the final investment decision (FID), and during the route survey and sampling campaign preparation and implementation phases.

The Danish North Sea Energy Island is expected to be an artificial island constructed 80 kilometers from the shore of the Danish peninsula, Jutland. Two energy islands are envisioned to be constructed as artificial island solutions, hosting all required infrastructure to connect offshore wind farms to the islands and plug them into an electrical grid. During the first phase of the project, about 200 wind turbines with a combined capacity of 3 GW are planned to be installed.

With a maximum capacity of 10 GW, the hub is expected to power 10 million European households with clean energy from its surrounding wind farms. Back in October 2021, Elia’s Modular Offshore Grid 2 (MOG 2) energy island was given the green light by the country’s Council of Ministers. This project will bring new offshore grid infrastructure to connect new wind farms in the up to 3.5 GW Princess Elisabeth zone to the Belgian national grid via an energy island.

The completion of the island is expected in mid-2026. The Belgian TSO plans to start the construction of the electrical infrastructure to connect offshore wind and allow for DC interconnections in the period 2026-2027. Elia is also looking into the economic and technical feasibility of a hybrid interconnector that would link Belgium with Norway in cooperation with the Norwegian transmission system operator, Statnett.

Hybrid interconnectors are expected to play a crucial role not just in Denmark’s future energy supply but also in Europe’s as well. Bearing this in mind, the European Commission included the Bornholm Energy Island (BEI) hybrid offshore interconnector between Denmark and Germany in the PCIs. The Danish government approved the development of Bornholm Energy Island and North Sea Energy Island in 2020. The following year, the government and Energinet started exploring a ramp-up of the initially planned capacity of 2 GW for Bornholm Energy Island to 3 GW.

When summer 2022 rolled in, an agreement was signed to expand the planned offshore wind capacity to 3 GW while Denmark and Germany agreed to jointly build a subsea connection that would run from the energy island to Germany. The inclusion on the PCI list comes months after Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action, and Lars Aagaard, Danish Minister for Climate, Energy and Utilities, inked a legally binding cooperation agreement for this joint energy project in the Baltic Sea under the EU Renewable Energy Directive.

Commenting on the European Commission’s PCI list, Hanne Storm Edlefsen, Vice President of Energy Islands, Energinet, remarked: “Today, again I am smiling, as I did on the picture, back in November 2021, when we signed our first agreements with Elia Group and 50Hertz Transmission GmbH on the hybrid interconnectors TritonLink and Bornholm Energy Island.

“Because these days ‘the era of EU funding for fossil fuel infrastructure is over,’  as Kadri Simson, EU Commissioner for Energy, stated yesterday when the European Commission adopted a list of 166 vital cross-border projects that will connect European countries and green economies of the future. Among the list of PCIs are TritonLink and Bornholm Energy Island – pioneering hybrid interconnectors in the North Sea and in the Baltic Sea.”

Located in the Danish sector of the Baltic Sea, Bornholm Energy Island will facilitate the connection of at least 3 GW of offshore wind generation capacity to the grid by the early 2030s. Afterward, the electricity will be transported via new grid connections to Germany (2 GW ) and the Danish mainland (1.2 GW). The countries’ TSOs, 50Hertz and Energinet, already agreed that they would each assume half of the infrastructure costs of the project. The duo will share the congestion proceeds from the respective lines to Germany and Denmark and each will receive ownership of the interconnector to the respective mainland.

“I strongly believe that to become independent of fossil fuels we must strengthen our ties. In a way, to become independent of fossil fuels is to acknowledge and take seriously our dependency on each other in Europe. Because of that, I smile. Because of that, I salute every single one of my many hard-working colleagues in Energinet, Elia Group, and 50Hertz Transmission GmbH working on these large and complex energy infrastructure projects that are so important in order to pave the way for all the green energy we need for a better world,” added Edlefsen.

Energinet and 50Hertz have now kicked off the tendering process for key technologies related to the Bornholm Energy Island project, thanks to a market dialogue with possible vendors, highlighting the need to speed up the tendering to reserve production capacity as early as possible. The next step will be to receive bids and start negotiations until contracts can be signed in the second half of 2024.

Another direct consequence of the market dialogue is that the two TSOs will split the tender into multiple contracts to enable vendors interested in bidding on the HVDC stations and cables the possibility to bid on contracts within their core business, while other parts of the project will be tendered separately. HDVC equipment for the stations in Germany and Denmark, which is being tendered as one joint contract, has been sent to prequalified vendors.

Energinet elaborates that the procurement of the HVDC-breakers – a future key technology for the energy island – has been designed as an option, which can either be built as part of the initial construction – or as a separate tender at a later phase. This is due to some vendors being highly interested in supplying the breakers, while others prefer to focus on their core products.

”We cannot ignore the current market situation. HVDC circuit breakers will play an important part in the operation of our Energy Island but are not crucial in the initial phase. Therefore, we have decided that it is more important to ensure a competitive bidding process and to keep up the pace of the green transition in order to secure the supply of clean electricity to consumers in Germany and Denmark,” pointed out Edlefsen.

While 50Hertz has already signed a procurement contract for HVDC cables for Bornholm Energy Island and several other projects, Energinet has started the tender of one contract for the production of cables and offshore installation. The Danish TSO underscores that onshore installation and horizontal directional drillings (HDD) and surveying and removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) will be tendered as separate contracts.

In addition, civil works and the buildings for the HDVC stations will be tendered for Denmark and Germany, respectively. The construction on Energinet’s part of the project in Denmark can start once an environmental permit has been received and archaeological excavations have been completed in 2025. In Germany, installation and construction are expected to begin after permits are granted by the authorities.

Harnessing offshore wind power offers a sea of decarbonization opportunities to Europe and the European Commission recognized this by including Elwind in the list containing projects of common interest. This project is a hybrid offshore interconnection between Latvia and Estonia. Latvia’s TSO, AS Augstsprieguma tikls (AST), and its Estonian counterpart, Elering, penned a cooperation agreement in April 2021 to study potential solutions to link the two countries’ joint 1 GW offshore wind project in the Baltic Sea to their mainland grids. Originally, the two countries started discussions for a joint offshore wind project in 2019.

The following year, the countries’ governments signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to develop a 1 GW offshore wind farm in the Gulf of Riga. Elwind is slated to be commissioned by 2030. To this end, AST and Elering are in charge of the transmission infrastructure development, construction, and connection issues to the mainland transmission network of the project. This joint Estonian-Latvian state-run cross-border offshore wind project aims to raise energy independence in the region by upping the green energy production ante and fortifying interstate electricity connectivity.

This is in line with the Marienborg declaration, which was signed by eight European Union countries bordering the Baltic Sea in August 2022, committing the players to increase offshore wind power generation capacity sevenfold – to 20 GW by 2030. This declaration recognizes the potential for offshore wind power in the Baltic Sea basin to reach up to 93 GW.

The Elwind project is expected to have an installed capacity of between 700 MW and 1,000 MW. The current estimates indicate that replacing fossil fuel-based electricity production with a 1,000 MW offshore wind park could save about 3 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.

Other offshore wind projects have also been listed by the European Commission as projects of common interest needed to address a bottleneck across country borders and provide synergies if implemented together. This includes the North Sea Wind Power Hub, which aims to harvest the power of the North Sea through a transnational and cross-sector approach to take a step-change required to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement.

These future energy highways envision a coordinated roll-out with multiple energy connections between North Sea countries and offer a blueprint to make it happen. The European Commission is interested in helping to unlock the full potential of the North Sea. Therefore, one or more hubs in the North Sea with interconnectors to bordering North Sea countries – Denmark, the Netherlands, and Germany – will get the chance to be bankrolled by the EU.

Hybrid interconnectors are on the rise in Europe, as many countries are putting the wheels into motion to explore options regarding their construction with other European counterparts. During the Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference 2023’s ‘Renewable energy: Innovate or accelerate?’ conference session, the speakers warned about focusing too much on innovation as it could slow down the build-out of offshore wind. At the same time, they also made the case for innovation in helping the industry accelerate on the path towards reaching the decarbonization targets for 2030 and beyond.  

In an attempt to shed more light on where innovation ought to take a slower pace, Liz Burdock, President and CEO at Oceantic Network (formerly The Business Network for Offshore Wind), underscores that there has to come a time when the industry will focus less on constant innovations and more on building the capacity.

Meanwhile, the UK is also working on exploring the North Sea’s decarbonization potential not just to curb the emission footprint of its oil and gas sector but also to help Britain reach its net zero goals. The country is stepping up its green electricity arsenal through many projects, including the one TotalEnergies joined recently.

The newest addition to the French player’s portfolio aims to bring a giant renewable energy project to life in Morocco to supply the UK with green electricity through the installation of high-voltage direct current (HDVC) subsea cables, along with a large battery energy storage.

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