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, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

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 A continental shelf is a portion of a continent that is submerged under an area of relatively shallow water, known as a shelf sea. Much of these shelves were exposed by drops in sea level during glacial periods. The shelf surrounding an islan ...

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 Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and near the point where the borders between the

territorial waters Territorial waters are informally an area of water where a sovereign state has jurisdiction, including internal waters, the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the exclusive economic zone, and potentially the extended continental shelf ( ...

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

, and

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

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 in honor ...

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 or man-made island is an island that has been Construction, constructed by humans rather than formed through natural processes. Other definitions may suggest that artificial islands are lands with the characteristics of hum ...

will have an area of . Thousands of

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s 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 An energy transition (or energy system transformation) is a major structural change to energy supply and consumption in an energy system. Currently, a transition to sustainable energy is underway to limit climate change. Most of the sustainab ...

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 An electrical grid (or electricity network) is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids consist of power stations, electrical substations to step voltage up or down, electric power tran ...

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 Netherlands, TenneT Germany, and the Danish Energinet.dk 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 joined the consortium, suggesting converting wind power to gas 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. This was followed in May 2019 by a report concerning the possibility for extension into the Norwegian sector.

References

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

North Sea Wind Power Hub Consortium

See also

References