In late February, 50Hertz presented the approval strategy and technical planning for the coastal water subsection of the OST-6-1 grid connection. The key points of the digital initial consultation included: the course of the seaside route, which for the most part runs parallel to the planned Hansa PowerBridge; the landing points in the municipality of Dierhagen; and the structure and contents of the environmental assessments. In addition, the first technical concepts for the construction of the grid connection were presented.

Simon Lang, project leader for the permits of the OST-6-1 grid connection, commented: “With the initial consultation, we gained a first idea of the participant’s sentiments. The goal and purpose of this consultation was to obtain feedback from the public agencies at an early stage and to determine the study scope for the application documents. For the route planning in coastal waters, the insights from the Hansa PowerBridge were largely taken into account as well. This was received positively by the participants.”

Participants included representatives from the permitting authority of the Ministry of Economics of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the Waterways & Shipping Office for the Baltic Sea, wind farm operator Skyborn and representatives from environmental organisations or nature conservation authorities. The coastal water subsection should be approved as part of a planning approval procedure of the competent authority, being the Ministry of Economics, Infrastructure, Tourism and Labour of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

Approval sections sea and land route of the grid connection OST-6-1; Photo: 50 Hertz

In 2022, the early participation started with the first preliminary discussions in the districts of Rostock of Vorpommern-Rügen as well as the affected municipalities of Dierhagen, Ribnitz-Damgarten, Dettmannsdorf and Marlow. These discussions will continue this year. Furthermore, dialogue and information formats for citizens of the municipalities in question are planned in the early summer.

The OST-6-1 grid connection connects the planned offshore wind farm Gennaker, which will be located north of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula in the Baltic Sea, to the transmission grid of 50Hertz. For this purpose, 50Hertz is planning and installing three submarine cable systems at the 220-kilovolt (kV) alternating current voltage level. These cable systems will transmit the generated wind power to the coast via two offshore substations (OSS). The connection to the 50Hertz transmission system is made at the point of common coupling (PCC) in the substation in Gnewitz that will, by then, have been built.

Source: 50Hertz