The Danish Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate, Lars Christian Lilleholt, has approved Energinet.dk’s application for investment in a new interconnection between the Eastern Danish and German electricity grids via the Baltic Sea.
Pursuant to the Danish Act on Energinet.dk, any investments in the transmission grid exceeding DKK 100 million must be approved by the Minister.
“The Minister’s approval is important and helps create the future, cross-border electricity market, where much more electricity must be traded back and forth across borders. On the one hand, Danish power stations and wind turbine owners can sell more electricity to German consumers and make a profit on it. On the other hand, Danish consumers can buy electricity in Germany, for example when the wind is not blowing and the wind turbines are not spinning. This makes the green transition less expensive and more effective,” said Torben Glar Nielsen , Executive Vice President, CTO, at Energinet.dk.
The connection will have a capacity of 400 megawatt (MW) and is a joint project between Energinet.dk and the German transmission system operator 50Hertz. It is the world’s first interconnection between two countries that also connects two countries’ offshore wind farms, Energinet.dk wrote.
The Danish offshore wind farm, Kriegers Flak, which the Folketing decided to erect in the Baltic Sea based on the energy agreement from 2012, will be connected to the submarine cables, which run from the German side to the two German offshore wind farms Baltic 1 and Baltic 2.
As the interconnection connects two different electricity areas, it is necessary to build a facility in Bentwisch which can synchronise electricity from the Eastern Danish and German systems.
With the approval, the Danish-German project can start entering contracts with suppliers. The CGS connection must be ready by the end of 2018.