Germany: First Submarine Cable Section Laid for Baltic 2

The work for the network connection of the second German offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea, the EnBW Baltic 2, is in progress.

The vessel Aura rinsed the first submarine cable section into the Baltic ground, on Saturday, 20 April 2013, for the connection of Baltic 2.

A total of sixty kilometers of submarine cables will be laid in the coming months, before the cable ends are ultimately lifted again to the surface and the sections are connected with special joints. Also, for the connection of Baltic 2, a second submarine cable from the Baltic 1 platform is laid to the landfall in Markgrafenheide near Rostock. From there, the land cable route leads to the Bentwisch transformer station.

50 Hertz will make the network connection available when the first wind turbines in the Baltic 2 offshore wind farm feed in.

The EnBW Baltic 2 significantly outperforms EnBW Baltic 1 (48 MW), with its planned eighty wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 288 megawatts (MW). Much greater distance from the coast, water depths under thirty meters and a varying soil present much higher demands on engineers and technicians who are building the wind farm and the grid connection.

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Offshore WIND Staff, April 23, 2013; Image: EnBW