50Hertz, Energinet Commence Tendering for Bornholm Energy Island

November 30, 2023, by Adnan Memija

Danish and German transmission system operators (TSOs) Energinet and 50Hertz have started the tendering process for the delivery of HVDC equipment and cables for the joint project, Bornholm Energy Island.

HDVC equipment for the stations in Germany and Denmark will be tendered as one joint contract which has been sent to prequalified vendors today, Energinet said. The three stations will be located in Høje Taastrup, Bornholm, and Germany.

50Hertz and Energinet have designed the procurement of the HVDC breakers as an option, which can either be built as part of the initial construction or as a separate tender at a later phase.

The reason for this, says Energinet, is that some vendors are highly interested in supplying the breakers, while others prefer to focus on their core products.

”We cannot ignore the current market situation. HVDC circuit breakers will play an important part in the operation of our Energy Island but are not crucial in the initial phase. Therefore, we have decided that it is more important to ensure a competitive bidding process and to keep up the pace of the green transition in order to secure the supply of clean electricity to consumers in Germany and Denmark,” said Hanne Storm Edlefsen, vice president for Energy Islands at Energinet.

50Hertz has already signed a contract for the procurement of HVDC cables for Bornholm Energy Island and several other projects.

Energinet has started the tender of one contract for the production of cables as well as offshore installation.

Onshore installation and horizontal directional drillings (HDD) will be a separate contract as well as surveying and removal of unexploded ordnance (UXO) which will also be tendered as a separate contract at a later time, according to Energinet.

Civil works and the buildings for the HDVC stations will be tendered for Denmark and Germany respectively, at a later time, said the Danish TSO.

The TSOs decided to speed up the tendering after a market dialogue with interested vendors in order to reserve production capacity as early as possible and keep to the project timeline, Energinet said.

In addition, 50Hertz and Energinet chose to split the tender into multiple contracts in order to enable parties interested in bidding on the HVDC stations and cables the possibility to bid on contracts within their core businesses, while other parts of the project will be tendered separately.

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The next step will be receiving bids and starting negotiations until contracts can be signed in the second half of 2024, said Energinet.

Construction on Energinet’s part of the project can commence once it has received an environmental permit and archaeological excavations have been completed in 2025.

In Germany, installation and construction can begin once permission has been granted by the authorities.

Bornholm Energy Island, located in the Danish sector of the Baltic Sea, will facilitate connecting at least 3 GW of offshore wind generation capacity to the grid by the early 2030s. The electricity will then be transported via new grid connections to Germany (2 GW ) and to the Danish mainland (1.2 GW).