Europe's largest-ever contracting package of around €30 billion has been launched for the security of supply, energy transition and climate protection.
The contracts will develop the North Sea as a hub for sustainable and independent European energy production, and long-term framework agreements will secure resources needed to build grid connections for North Sea wind farms. The total volume of the contracts for the components of the 14 systems amounts to around €30 billion. The contracts will bring a transmission capacity of offshore wind energy in the German and Dutch North Sea, which will generate as much electricity as 28 large-scale power plants.
Top representatives of transmission system operator TenneT, Hitachi Energy/Petrofac cooperation, and three consortium partnerships GE/Sembcorp (SMOP), GE/McDermott, and Siemens Energy/Dragados have officially signed the contracts to seal Europe's largest-ever tender award for energy transition infrastructure. The 14 systems are to be realized by 2031, and the innovative two-gigawatt technology for converting alternating current into direct current and back will be manufactured exclusively at European production sites of the consortiums' members in all projects. With a contract of this magnitude, Europe will be taking a global lead in technology and production in a key sector of tomorrow's energy supply.
According to Tim Meyerjürgens, COO of TenneT, Europe must develop the North Sea as Europe's green power house and quickly connect it to the electricity grids on land. The 2GW Program will help make green wind energy from the North Sea scalable and more cost-efficient, while minimizing any impacts on the environment. Niklas Persson, Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Hitachi Energy's Grid Integration business, said the commitment to integrating a large amount of offshore wind into the grid will drive real change in the energy system, making it more sustainable, flexible, and secure. The innovative business models based on agile collaboration, standardization, and synergies between projects, along with HVDC technology, are key enablers of this change.
Source: marketscreener.com