The power connection should bring up to eight gigawatts of power from offshore wind energy directly to North Rhine-Westphalia and thus cover the energy needs of eight million people in total.
In order for Germany to achieve its climate goals, offshore wind farms should provide as much output in 2035 as around 50 large coal-fired power plants. Offshore wind energy is to replace conventional energy sources, especially in the load centers in western Germany. This not only requires new offshore wind farms, but also new lines that connect them to the transmission grid on land—so-called offshore grid connection systems. That is the job of wind vein west.
It includes the four offshore grid connection systems NOR-15-1, 17-1, 19-1 and 21-1. The submarine cables begin in the wind farms in the North Sea and are bundled as underground cables from the coast to their grid connection points in the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region. In 2032, the first two gigawatts of offshore capacity are to flow to North Rhine-Westphalia via a line from Windader West. The remaining three lines are scheduled to go into operation in 2033, 2034 and 2036.
“The Windader West combines four projects with a transmission capacity of 2,000 megawatts each. The systems belong to the new powerful two-gigawatt generation of offshore connections. Amprion is thus making a significant contribution to the efficient and rapid conversion of the energy system in order to bring large quantities of wind energy to North Rhine-Westphalia,” says Peter Barth, Managing Director of Amprion Offshore GmbH.
