German regulator approves offshore wind links plan

The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) in Germany on Monday said it has approved an offshore network development plan by 2025, providing planning security for offshore wind farms.

The plan regulates the connections of wind capacity at sea to the German grid. It includes four connections of 900 MW each that will link clusters of wind farms in the North Sea to the shore, as well as three connections of 250 MW in the Baltic Sea. The connection projects are NOR-3-3 (Dolwin6), NOR-1-1 (Dolwin5), NOR-7-1 (Borwin5) and NOR-5-2 (Sylwin2) in the North Sea and OST-2-1, OST-2-2 and OST- 2-3 in the Baltic Sea.

The plan sets the order and years of their commissioning. The Baltic Sea links should go online between 2021 and 2022 and the North Sea connections in 2023-2025.

The regulator said it has taken into account offshore wind legislation. In July the Bundestag and the Bundesrat in Germany approved the new energy law, with which the country turns to auctions and sets annual power capacity installations caps. It will limit offshore and onshore wind deployment so that there is enough time to complete grid upgrade projects.

Bundesnetzagentur projects 10.75 GW of offshore wind capacity in 2025, split between 8.93 GW in the North Sea and 1.82 GW in the Baltic Sea.

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