Dutch, German North Sea wind farms produce more power in 2022

January 30 (Renewables Now) - Wind parks in the North Sea fed 29.04 TWh of clean electricity into the Dutch and German power grids in 2022 which is 16% more than in the prior year, transmission system operator (TSO) TenneT said on Monday.

While the power transmitted from wind farms in the North Sea to the German mainland rose to 21.13 TWh last year from 20.3 TWh in 2021, the growth in the Netherlands was much bigger -- from 4.71 TWh in 2021 to 7.91 TWh in 2022. The sharp increase in the Netherlands was driven by the commissioning of offshore wind capacity during the year and the launch of TenneT's offshore grid connection systems Hollands Kust (zuid) Alpha and Beta.

At the end of 2022, Germany had a total of 7,036 MW of generation capacity in the North Sea, which is 357 MW more than a year earlier. The transmission capacity provided by TenneT in the German North Sea is 7,132 MW.

TenneT noted that the sponsorship of its projects BalWin1 and BalWin2 has been transferred to TSO Amprion. Thus, Tennet is now responsible for the realisation of six offshore grid connections, each with a transmission capacity of 2 GW, by 2031. These include BalWin3 with Wilhelmshaven grid connection point, BalWin4 with grid connection point Unterweser, LanWin1 with Unterweser grid connection point, LanWin2 with grid connection point in the Heide area, LanWin4 with grid connection point Wilhelmshaven and LanWin5 with grid connection point at the NordWest hub.