The Port of Rotterdam has joined the North Sea Wind Power Hub Consortium in order to speed up the realisation of sustainable electricity and meet the objectives of the Paris climate change agreement.
Rotterdam’s sustainability strategy and experience in seaward land reclamation is a clear will be an important asset for the consortium which comprises TenneT TSO B.V. (Netherlands), Energinet (Denmark), TenneT TSO GmbH (Germany) and Gasunie (Netherlands).
“Industry needs sustainable electricity and hydrogen if it is to meet the climate change targets of the Paris Agreement,” said Allard Castelein, CEO, Port of Rotterdam.
“The concept of a North Sea Wind Power Hub is an appealing prospect for the development of a large-scale, sustainable energy system in the North Sea. We really need to speed up efforts to develop large-scale offshore wind energy capacity and ensure this capacity is effectively integrated into the relevant plans of the North Sea countries.”
Future vision
The consortium's vision starts from a stepwise development with bi-national hybrid connections and builds towards an accelerated roll-out facilitated by large scale (10-30 GW) offshore wind collection hubs feeding and connecting multiple North Sea countries.
Central to this vision is the construction of one or more so-called ‘Power Link Islands’ or hubs with interconnections to the countries bordering the North Sea.
A Power Link Island will be able to accommodate a large number of links to wind turbines and/or offshore wind farms and facilitate the distribution and transmission of wind-generated electricity via direct-current connections to North Sea countries.
These connections – so-called ‘Wind Connectors’ – will not only transmit wind power from the wind farms to the hub/island, but will simultaneously serve as interconnectors between the energy markets of the aforementioned countries, enabling them to trade electricity across their borders.
On a Power Link Island, wind power can also be converted to sustainable hydrogen for large-scale transport to shore or for storage or buffering purposes. Hydrogen is currently produced from natural gas with CO2 as a by-product.
Combining the strengths of electricity and gas supply systems may also provide a boost to the use of hydrogen as a sustainable solution in numerous applications including industry and transportation.
source: GreenPort
