Amprion Cleared to Start DolWin4 and BorWin4 Public Planning Preps

Germany’s Amprion has secured a waiver from relevant authorities allowing the transmission system operator to skip the regional planning procedure for the sections of DolWin4 and BorWin4 offshore grid connection systems between the North Sea coast (Hagermarsch) and the Emden area.

Amprion can now start preparing for the public planning procedure, the TSO said.

The 900MW DolWin4 and the 900MW BorWin4 systems are planned to be commissioned in 2028 and 2029, respectively.

The two offshore systems will be connected to the Amprion grid in Lingen, a town in southwestern Lower Saxony. The cables will cross the island of Norderney and reach the mainland in the coastal town Hagermarsch. On the mainland, Amprion has to install about 150 to 170 kilometres of land cable between the coast and the grid connection point in Lingen.

DolWin4 and BorWin4 will be installed in parallel at the onshore sections. The administrative districts of Aurich and Emden, the relevant authorities for the 43-kilometre section between the North Sea coast and Emden, have now waived the regional planning procedure. The reason for this is the Regional Plan, which already contains suitable corridors for offshore cables, Amprion said.

In total, the Regional Plan of the administrative district Aurich designates three offshore cable corridors from Hagermarsch in the southbound direction. A feasibility study showed that Amprion can realise the offshore systems in the most western corridor, which ends close to the city of Emden. This is where another project has its northern starting point – the DC project “A-Nord“, which runs past Lingen and ends close to Düsseldorf. Amprion wants to bundle DolWin4 and BorWin4 with A-Nord from Emden southwards in order to reduce costs and the impact on landscape and soil.

The relevant authorities‘ decision gives Amprion more time than initially expected to take up preparations for the public planning procedure. The Dortmund-based TSO plans to submit the necessary documents and start the procedure in 2022.