Germany Greenlights DolWin4, Amprion’s First Offshore Grid Connection

December 26, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

The German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) has issued a planning approval decision for the DolWin4 offshore grid connection in Germany’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the North Sea.

DolWin4, the first offshore grid connection system being implemented by German transmission system operator (TSO) Amprion Offshore, will go into operation in 2028 and connect three offshore wind farms to the German grid.

Amprion submitted the application documents for two offshore grids, DolWin4 and BorWin4, in 2021 and the BSH initiated the planning approval process for DolWin4 in 2022 and for BorWin4 at the beginning of this year.

Amprion Offshore / DolWin4 and BorWin4 offshore grid connections

Although the planning approval decision is now in place for DolWin4, Amprion has not yet received the final building permit but must first go through a multi-stage approval process by the BSH. In addition, Amprion now also needs to take into account the additional provisions issued in the planning approval decision during the technical implementation and provide evidence of this.

The subject of the application for DolWin4 with the BSH is the DolWin delta converter platform and the approximately 26-kilometre-long submarine cable system, for which Amprion has already selected the suppliers.

The German TSO placed the main orders last year, with Siemens Energy and Dragados Offshore selected to supply the converter platform and Prysmian to deliver the submarine cables. The same suppliers have been selected for the BorWin4 grid connection.

In July 2022, Amprion started onshore construction work for the DolWin4 and BorWin4 offshore grid connections at Norderney Island’s North Beach.

The DolWin4 and BorWin4 projects will together have a connection capacity of 1.8 GW.

Amprion is also developing BalWin1 and BalWin2 offshore grid connections, each capable of transmitting 2 GW, which are scheduled to go into operation in 2029 and 2030, respectively.