News

On 7 June 2018 the Baltic Integrid’s communication platform – the Baltic Offshore Grid Forum (BOGF) held one of its key conferences, entitled “Offshore Grid and Offshore Wind Energy in the Baltic Sea – Opportunity for Integrating Energy Markets” in Warsaw. The event brought together around 100 experts from the Baltic Sea region. A number of individual presentations as well as panel discussions addressed challenges and opportunities of the Baltic Offshore Grid concept.

Moreover, the results of a pre-feasibility study were presented, which evaluates the technical, economic, regulatory and spatial requirements of offshore meshed grids infrastructure while using the example of two concrete case studies from the Baltic Sea Region: Poland-Sweden-Lithuania and Germany-Sweden integrated with interconnected offshore wind farms.

On May 15th 2018 another event of the Baltic Offshore Grid Forum (BOGF) took place in Bremerhaven (Germany) alongside the WINDFORCE Conference 2018: The joint Thematic Working Group Seminar "Environment & Society" and "Cost-Benefit Analysis".

State-owned Polish Transmission System Operator, PSE, has said that as much as 8 GW of offshore wind capacity could be installed in the Polish Baltic Sea in the longer term. According to PSE President Eryk Kłosowski 4 GW of offshore wind could already be installed by 2026/27.

On Sunday, April 8, the heavy-duty crane barge Oleg Strashnov lifted the offshore substation topside for the Arkona wind farm on its jacket foundation. According to 50Hertz, the substation ensures security of supply and reduces costs for the German consumers, the wind farm operator and the transmission system operator alike.

The Baltic InteGrid Spatial Planning Working Group - led by the Maritime Institute in Gdansk (Poland) - has identified potential infrastructure corridors for a Baltic Offshore Grid. In two seminars, and in cooperation with the Baltic LINes project, the working group took a close look at present and planned sea uses in the Baltic Sea.  Existing and planned linear infrastructure was mapped and the maritime spatial plans of the littoral states were analysed to identify potential spatial conflicts. In February 2018 representatives from the Baltic InteGrid project  discussed potential corridors for a meshed offshore grid in the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic Offshore Grid Forum has continued its activities in Espoo, Finland where partners met with experts on 15 and 16 March 2018 at three different events: The Finish Country workshop, with a national focus on offshore wind energy development, and two Thematic Working Group (TWG) seminars - one focusing on "the cost-benefit analysis of a meshed grid in the Baltic Sea region", and another on "a meshed offshore wind grid in the Baltic Sea: Opportunities and obstacles in the policy, legal and regulatory framework". The Baltic InteGrid partners had the opportunity to present their interim results of their activities to a wider audience and receive valuable feedback but were also able to receive substantial input from esteemed experts in the field of offshore wind energy with diverse organisational affiliations and backgrounds.

Baltic InteGrid met the offshore wind industry during a side event at the WindEurope Conference and Exhibition 2017 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The Danish Technical University together with Rostock Business organized a first Thematic Working Group Seminar on “Technology & Grid” and “Market & Supply”. The side event „Baltic Sea Offshore Wind Energy Grid Development 2035“ took place on Wednesday 29 November 2017 from 13:30 to 16:30.

The German TSO 50Hertz and the Danish TSO Energinet have now released an info video about the Kriegers Flak Combined Grid Solution, the world’s first offshore interconnector that will use national grid connections to offshore wind farms in order to connect two countries.

In the margin of the EUFORES 17th Inter-Parliamentary Meeting on Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency in Tallinn, WindEurope and the national wind energy associations from Estonia, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation have signed the Baltic Sea Declaration.

We interviewed Jan Kostevc, Infrastructure Regulation Officer at the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), the supranational agency monitoring the progress of key projects towards the European Energy Union. He has provided an account of the state of the art on the development of crucial infrastructure for an coordinated internal Energy market in the EU and his assessment on regulatory, technical and economic success factors for OWE farms in the Baltic Sea region with a meshed grid approach.

Construction work on the Arkona wind project in the German Baltic Sea has begun at the end of August 2017. E.ON reports that the first foundations have been successfully laid in the seabed.

The recently published report "Unleashing Europe’s offshore wind potential - A new resource assessment" developed by BVG Associates for WindEurope points towards the considerable offshore wind energy potential in Europe. Offshore wind energy expected to produce 7% to 11% of the EU’s electricity demand by 2030 according to WindEurope, which is only a fraction what could actually be achieved. The report calls upon governments to ensure that the resource potential of OWE in the European sea basins is exploited.

Partners of the Baltic InteGrid Project attended the Wind Europe 2017 in London which was held from 6 to 8 June 2017 and declared as the world’s largest offshore conference and exhibition. This gave them a chance to meet stakeholders, promote the project and gain insights of the stance of some of the most relevant offshore wind energy (OWE) market actors OWE development in the Baltic Sea region.

During the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan (BEMIP) meeting in Brussels at the beginning of April, representatives of the Baltic Sea region countries agreed on a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which the foreseen synchronization of the Baltic power grids will preferably occur via Poland.

With the latest amendment to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG 2017) Germany has replaced the feed-in tariffs with a competitive tender system for offshore wind energy. On 13 April the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) announced the results of the first German offshore wind energy tender. Impressively, three offshore wind projects with a total capacity of 1,380 MW won the tender with 0.0 ct/kWh bids and, therefore, will receive no subsidies on top of the wholesale electricity price.

TenneT TSO B.V. (Netherlands), Energinet.dk (Denmark) and TenneT TSO GmbH (Germany) signed a trilateral agreement on March 23rd 2017 for the development of a large renewable European electricity system in the North Sea. This so-called ‘North Sea Wind Power Hub’ has the potential to supply 70 to 100 million Europeans with renewable energy by 2050.

At the end of February 2017, the first meeting of the Thematic Working Group Environment and Society took place in Warsaw, organised by Foundation for Sustainable Energy, partner in the Baltic InteGrid project. During the seminar, together with project partners, representatives from Maritime Office in Gdynia, Chief Inspectorate of Environmental Protection, National Marine Fisheries Research Institute and General Command of the Polish Navy discussed environmental and socio-economic impacts of an offshore infrastructure...

WindEurope today published the latest expansion figures for offshore wind energy in 2016: Europe installed 1.6 GW of new offshore wind energy in 2016 with cumulative capacity now reaching 12.6 GW.

On 25 November 2016, IKEM hosted the Thematic Working Group Seminar "Policy & Regulation" of the Baltic InteGrid project in Berlin to advance the discussions on policy and regulatory obstacles towards a meshed offshore grid in the Baltic Sea with  stakeholders from the region.

The partnership of the Baltic InteGrid convened in Gdansk on 4 and 5 October for the third internal partner meeting of the project, and for the very first Thematic Working Group (TWG). Hosted by the Maritime Institute of Gdansk, the TWG focused on the complex topic of Maritime Spatial Planning. Each country around the Baltic Sea is currently developing their national Maritime Spatial Plan, with some being very far along already, and others finding themselves in a much earlier stage of planning.

Good news for Baltic InteGrid from the Ministry of Economics of the Republic of Latvia, acting as EUSBSR Policy Area Coordinator for the Policy Area Energy (PA Energy): The recommendation of the PA to include Baltic InteGrid as a Flagship Project under PA Energy has been accepted by the BEMIP initiative, DG REGIO and national coordinators.