The Anonymous Widower

NeuConnect Awards Two Major Contracts

This page on the NeuConnect web site is entitled NeuConnect Awards Over £1.5 billion Of Major Contracts As First Ever UK-German Energy Link Moves An Important Step Closer.

NeuConnect is a proposed interconnector between England and Germany.

• It will have a capacity of 1.4 GW.
• The interconnector will be around 450 miles long.
• It will be HVDC, like many similar undersea power cables.
• As the title says, it will be the first-ever UK-German energy link.

Wikipedia describes the route like this.

The cable will run between the Greystones substation on the Isle of Grain, in Kent in England to the new Fedderwarden substation in Wilhelmshaven in the Lower Saxony region of Germany. Landfall will be next to Grain Coastal Park, in Kent, and at Hooksiel, near Wilhemshaven in Germany.

Two contracts have been awarded.

• The contract to design, manufacture, install, test and commission the 725km interconnector has been awarded to Prysmian Group.
• The contract to design and build two converter stations in the UK and Germany has been awarded to Siemens Energy.

This sounds like a very simple plan to add an important interconnector between the UK and Germany.

I have some observations and thoughts.

The Isle Of Grain

The Isle of Grain is described in Wikipedia like this.

Isle of Grain (Old English Greon, meaning gravel) is a village and the easternmost point of the Hoo Peninsula within the district of Medway in Kent, south-east England. No longer an island and now forming part of the peninsula, the area is almost all marshland and is a major habitat for diverse wetland birds. The village constitutes a civil parish, which at the 2011 census had a population of 1,648, a net decrease of 83 people in 10 years.

Apart for the birds, over the last few decades it has been home to the following.

• Until 1982, it was the location of a BP oil refinery.
• In the 1990s, the isle was used to make the segments for the lining of the Channel Tunnel.
• Following completion of the Channel Tunnel, the site is now part-occupied by Thamesport, the UK’s third largest container port.
• Next to the former BP site is Grain Power Station, built in the 1970s, which previously burnt oil.
• This power station was demolished in the 2015 and replaced with a 1.275 GW gas-fired power station.
• Another major installation is a new Grain Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) import facility, which takes heat from the gas-fired power station.
• The Isle of Grain is the landing point for the BritNed undersea power cable between The Netherlands and the UK.

The Google Map shows the Isle of Grain.

Note.

1. Thamesport is in the South-West corner
2. To its North is the LNG import facility.
3. To the North-East of Thamesport is the 735 MW Medway power station.
4. There is a rail connection to Hoo Junction on the North Kent Line.

This second Google Map shows the Eastern side of the Isle.

Note.

1. Grain Coastal Park, where NeuConnect will make landfall, is marked by the green arrow at the top of the map.
2. Towards the South-Eastern corner of the map is the 1.275 GW Grain gas-fired power station.
3. To the East of the power station, there is more switchgear than you see in a bad Frankenstein film.
4. The smaller square at the bottom with the two white squares could be the converter station for the BritNed interconnector.

I am sure there is space on the island for a connection for NeuConnect.

There is also a total of 2.01 GW of gas-fired power stations on the Isle of Grain.

Wind Power In The Thames Estuary

This Google Map shows the Thames Estuary.

Note that the red arrow indicates the Isle of Grain.

This map from Wikipedia shows the wind farms in the area.

These are the ones that are operational.

• 2 – East Anglia Array – 714 MW
• 8 – Greater Gabbard – 504 MW
• 9 – Gunfleet Sands – 184 MW
• 13 – Kentish Flats – 140 MW
• 15 – London Array – 630 MW
• 27 – Thanet – 300 MW

Note.

1. The Isle of Grain is just above the second o in London.
2. I have ignored the Ramplion wind farm (21!), as it is too far from the Isle of Grain.
3. This is a total of nearly 2.5 GW.

Planned extensions in the area include.

• East Anglia Array – 3.1 GW – Completion date of 2026

But the Wikipedia entry for the East Anglia Array says this about the wind farm.

The target capacity for the entire East Anglia Zone is 7200 MW which could require up to 1200 turbines.

Could we see one of the following?

• A connector from the East Anglia Array to the Isle of Grain.
• One or more new wind farms in the Thames Estuary connected to the Isle of Grain.
• German investment in a wind farm or farms connected to the Isle of Grain.

The Isle of Grain could become an island of energy providing power for London, the South-East of England, Germany and The Netherlands.

An Electrolyser On The Isle Of Grain

Consider.

• There will be plenty of renewable electricity.
• As there is a liquified natural gas terminal, there is plenty of gas storage.
• One or both of the gas-fired power stations can be converted to run on hydrogen.
• As more and more trucks are converted to hydrogen, there will be a large demand for hydrogen for heavy transport.

This must surely make a large electrolyser on the Isle of Grain a possibility.

The BritNed Interconnector

The BritNed interconnector is described like this in Wikipedia.

BritNed is a 1,000 MW high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) submarine power cable between the Isle of Grain in Kent, the United Kingdom; and Maasvlakte in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

The BritNed interconnector would serve as a link for the foreseeable European super grid project.

Up to now, most of the electricity flow has been to the UK.

But surely, as more wind farms are developed power will flow the other way.

Wilhelmshaven Will Be A German Hub For Green Hydrogen

In Uniper To Make Wilhelmshaven German Hub For Green Hydrogen; Green Ammonia Import Terminal, I described plans by the Germans for a hydrogen hub at Wilhelmshaven.

The original story came from an article with the same name on Green Car Congress.

This is the first two paragraphs.

Under the name “Green Wilhelmshaven,” Germany-based international energy company Uniper plans to establish a German national hub for hydrogen in Wilhelmshaven and is working on a corresponding feasibility study.

Plans include an import terminal for green ammonia. The terminal will be equipped with an ammonia cracker for producing green hydrogen and will also be connected to the planned hydrogen network. A 410-megawatt electrolysis plant is also planned, which—in combination with the import terminal—would be capable of supplying around 295,000 metric tons or 10% of the demand expected for the whole of Germany in 2030.

As I said in the original post, I’m not happy about green ammonia, but the 1.4 GW NeuConnect interconnector has more than enough power to run a 410 MW electrolyser plant at full capacity.

It could even run three electrolysers of this size.

Hooksiel And Wilhelmshaven

NeuConnect will make landfall at Hooksiel.

This Google Map shows Hooksiel and Wilhelmshaven.

Note.

1. Hooksiel is the village outlined in red.
2. The water to the right of the map is the Jade Bight.
3. The square block sticking out into the bight appears to be a container port.
4. There appears to be chemical works or oil refineries North of the port.
5. Wilhelmshaven is the town to the South of the port.

There would appear to be plenty of space for Uniper to construct Green Wilhelmshaven.

German And UK Wind Power Production

According to this page on Wikipedia, which is entitled Wind Power By Country, in 2020, these were installed wind power in various countries.

• Germany – 62,184 MW
• Spain – 27,089 MW
• UK – 24,665 MW
• France – 17,382 MW
• Italy – 10,389 MW
• Netherlands – 6,600 MW

In 2020 we were 37.5 GW behind Germany.

It looks like we’ll commission 3.3 GW this year and 6.1 in 2023, with Wikipedia saying that 12.9 GW is under development, which should close the gap to a certain extent.

In ScotWind Offshore Wind Leasing Delivers Major Boost To Scotland’s Net Zero Aspirations, I described how Scotland will add 15.1 GW of floating and 9.7 GW of fixed foundation offshore wind.

It looks like initially, we’ll be buying German wind-generated electricity, but in the future the direction could easily change around.

Boris And Olaf

There were mumblings from Boris, that energy was talked about in their meeting in Downing Street last week.

It does appear there is a lot of ways that the UK and Germany can co-operate in the future with respect to energy.

• German finance can be used to build wind farms in UK waters.
• German companies can build the turbines and the interconnectors we need to develop vast offshore wind farms.
• We can supply surplus energy to Germany through the NeuConnect interconnector.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Boris and Olaf had signed a very comprehensive energy co-operation agreement.

 

April 11, 2022 - Posted by AnonW | Energy, Hydrogen | Boris Johnson, BP, BritNed Interconnector, East Anglia Array, Germany, Interconnectors, isle Of Grain, Kent, NeuConnect, Offshore Wind Power, Olaf Scholz, The Netherlands, UK, Uniper, Wilhelmshaven, Wilhelmshaven Electrolyser, Wind Power