BorWin 4 contracts halted

GERMANY: The awarding procedure for the 900MW Borwin4 North Sea offshore wind grid link has been halted, and project links reallocated.

The BorWin 1 converter station - Tennet has stopped the licensing procedure for the BorWin 4 link

The contract may "be the object of a re-publication", said Tennet in a note published 2 December 2015.

A Tennet spokeswoman said the BorWin 4 link is not part of the federal network agency (BneztA)'s plan for the next ten years.

Some of the projects that had been lined up to use the 900MW connection would be reallocated to other networks. For others there is still a question of if and when they would be online.

"In the past BorWin 4 was planned for the 210MW Deutsche Bucht project but, with a new distribution of the grid connections for the offshore wind projects, all have a possibility to use existing grid connections or grid connections under construction," said Tennet's spokeswoman

"So Deutsche Bucht will use BorWin 2. The connected wind farm Global Tech 1, currently on BorWin 2, will change later to BorWin 3.

"With regard to Veja Mate, it isn't clear if and when it will be online," she added.

In April 2015, the federal hydrographic agency (BSH) suspended licensing for far-from-shore German offshore projects.

BSH sent a letter to developers saying the federal network agency will only build converters up to appoximately 120 kilometres from the mainland.

The letter's author, Nico Nolte, head of sea management at BSH said: "In some sea areas far away from the coast the federal network agency does not foresee converters in the next ten years."