North Sea Wind Power Hub is a proposed energy island complex to be built in the middle of the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...

as part of a European system for sustainable electricity. One or more “Power Link” artificial islands will be created at the northeast end of the

Dogger Bank Dogger Bank (Dutch: ''Doggersbank'', German: ''Doggerbank'', Danish: ''Doggerbanke'') is a large sandbank in a shallow area of the North Sea about off the east coast of England. During the last ice age the bank was part of a large landmass ...

, a relatively shallow area in the North Sea, just outside the continental shelf of the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and near the point where the borders between the

territorial waters The term territorial waters is sometimes used informally to refer to any area of water over which a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potent ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and

Denmark ) , song = ( en, "King Christian stood by the lofty mast") , song_type = National and royal anthem , image_map = EU-Denmark.svg , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of Denmark , establish ...

come together. Dutch, German, and Danish electrical grid operators are cooperating in this project to help develop a cluster of offshore wind parks with a capacity of several

gigawatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wat ...

s, with interconnections to the North Sea countries. Undersea cables will make international trade in electricity possible. According to this plan, the first

artificial island An artificial island is an island that has been constructed by people rather than formed by natural means. Artificial islands may vary in size from small islets reclaimed solely to support a single pillar of a building or structure to those th ...

will have an area of . Thousands of wind turbines will be placed around the island, with short alternating-current links to the island. On the island itself, power converters will change the alternating current to direct current that will be carried to the mainland via undersea cables. The Hub – one island at first, and later one or two more – is intended to make a substantial contribution to the energy transition and to achieving the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015. The project is to be completed around 2050. In June 2016, nine countries – the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxemburg, France, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, and Sweden – signed an agreement to cooperate in planning and building offshore wind parks. The goal is to reduce costs as quickly as possible and thus make the wind parks more economically viable. A study commissioned by Dutch electrical grid operator TenneT reported in February 2017 that as much as 110 gigawatts of wind energy generating capacity could ultimately be developed at the Dogger Bank location.

North Sea Wind Power Hub Consortium

At the North Seas Energy Forum in Brussels on 23 March 2017,

TenneT TenneT is a transmission system operator in the Netherlands and in a large part of Germany. ''TenneT B.V.'' is the national electricity transmission system operator of the Netherlands, headquartered in Arnhem. Controlled and owned by the Dutch ...

Netherlands, TenneT Germany, and the Danish

Energinet.dk Energinet is the Danish national transmission system operator for electricity and natural gas. It is an independent public enterprise owned by the Danish state under the Ministry of Climate and Energy. Energinet has some 1150 employees, a ...

signed a trilateral agreement to cooperate in further development of the project. These network managers hope that Norway, the United Kingdom, and Belgium will also join them. In September 2017, Dutch gas-grid operator

Gasunie N.V. Nederlandse Gasunie (short form: Gasunie) is a Dutch natural gas infrastructure and transportation company operating in the Netherlands and Germany. Gasunie owns the Netherlands gas transmission network with a total length of over and long ...

joined the consortium, suggesting converting wind

power to gas Power-to-gas (often abbreviated P2G) is a technology that uses electric power to produce a gaseous fuel. When using surplus power from wind generation, the concept is sometimes called windgas. Most P2G systems use electrolysis to produce hydrogen ...

and using near offshore gas infrastructure for storage and transport. In November 2017, the Port of Rotterdam became the fifth member of the consortium. In February 2019, the consortium published two reports establishing a foundation for their planning: a spatial planning report and a cost evaluation report.

References

{{Coord, 55.4, N, 4.0, E, display=title Offshore wind farms in the North Sea North Sea

North Sea Wind Power Hub Consortium

See also

References