New Baltic Sea Interconnector On Horizon As Lithuania, Latvia, and Germany Plan Cross-Border Link
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Germany are planning a joint offshore interconnector that would enable electricity trading between the Baltic countries and Germany and allow for the integration of up to 2 GW of offshore wind capacity in Lithuania and Latvia
These first two paragraphs add more detail to the article.
The energy ministers of the three countries signed a joint declaration of intent on 18 February, paving the way for the development of the Baltic-German PowerLink interconnector, which would, in addition to electricity trading and offshore wind capacity integration, also enable the expansion of onshore renewable energy capacity.
The Lithuanian, Latvian, and German transmission system operators (TSOs) – Litgrid, Augstsprieguma tīkls and 50Hertz – agreed to assess the feasibility of the hybrid electricity interconnection.
As Germany, has the following connections under development in the West.
- AquaVentus to Aberdeen, Humberside, Denmark, Norway and The Netherlands.
- NeuConnect to the Isle of Grain In England.
- GriffinLink, which is an offshore link to England.
The Germans seem to be putting themselves at the centre of an energy distribution system, that has the capability to stabilise European and UK electricity for thousands of years. Especially, if the network grows to include more countries.
This paragraph says this about the Baltic-German PowerLink project.
The Baltic-German PowerLink project concept developed by Litgrid, Augstsprieguma tīkls, and 50Hertz includes a 2 GW, approximately 600 kilometres long hybrid offshore connection, with the connection point in the Baltic States planned to be on the border between Lithuania and Latvia. The exact location is to be determined after technical studies.
Note.
- The interconnectors may be long, but they are not longer than anything built successfully before in European waters.
- The UK and the Island of Ireland are well-linked.
- There would appear to be no need for challenging projects like the Morocco-UK Power Project
I suspect that Germany will get the energy it needs and the British Isles will get a nice little earner.
If Europe is generating large amounts of wind and solar energy with its variable output it will need lots of energy storage.
What Countries Have The Terrain For Pumped Storage Hydro In Europe?
I asked Google AI and received this answer.
Key countries with ideal, high-elevation terrain and significant existing or planned capacity include:
Alpine Region (The Heart of European Pumped Storage):
Switzerland: Extremely high capacity due to steep, mountainous landscapes and significant water sources, hosting the world’s oldest working pumped storage plant.
Austria: Heavily mountainous, it is a major player in PSH expansion and modernization.
France: Home to one of Europe’s largest, the Grand Maison hydroelectric power station.
Italy: Holds high capacity with numerous planned projects.
Germany: Strong existing infrastructure.
Southern Europe:
Spain: Features some of Europe’s largest plants (e.g., La Muela/Cortes-La Muela).
Portugal: Significant recent investment in large-scale projects like the Tâmega complex.
Other Potential Areas:
Norway: High potential due to its mountainous, water-rich terrain.
United Kingdom: High project volume currently under construction.
Balkans & Central Europe:
Countries like Bulgaria, Romania, and the Czech Republic have suitable terrain for further development.
These countries benefit from significant hydraulic head (steep drop) and natural or artificial reservoir potential, making them ideal for storing energy for peak consumption hours.
Note.
- As expected, the Alpine region is Top of the League.
- The UK is holding its own despite its small mountains.
- There is a lot of potential to be developed.
But then Electric Mountain in Snowdonia is certainly at the top table of pumped storage systems despite being built in the 1980s.
What Countries Have The Terrain For Hydrogen Storage In Europe?
I asked Google AI and received this answer.
Key European countries with suitable geological terrain—specifically salt caverns and depleted gas fields—for large-scale, underground hydrogen storage include Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, the United Kingdom, and France. Other significant regions for storage potential include Spain, Hungary, and Austria, which are developing porous storage facilities.
Key Regions & Terrain Types:
Salt Caverns (North-Western Europe): Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, France, and the UK have substantial salt deposits suitable for creating caverns, identified as cost-efficient for large-scale storage.
Depleted Gas Fields (Porous Rock): The Netherlands, Germany, and parts of Central/Southern Europe (Spain, Hungary) have significant capacity in existing porous storage, particularly in the North Sea region.
Specific Projects: Germany (Uniper’s Krummhörn project), Netherlands (HyStock), and France (HYPSTER at Etrez) are active, with Spain and Denmark emerging as major hydrogen hubs.
Capacity Potential: The Netherlands, for instance, holds massive potential (35-60 TWh) due to its offshore and onshore depleted fields.
Salt cavern projects, which offer high-deliverability storage, are heavily concentrated in the North-Western European industrial corridor.
I was lucky enough have a tour of ICI’s salt mine in Cheshire, when I worked there in the 1960s and I remember these facts from those days.
- There was enough salt in the ground under Cheshire to last several thousand years.
- Most salt was extracted from boreholes, for making chlorine using electrolysis and the Castner-Kellner process.
- Hydrogen was a by-product and much of it was mixed with coal gas to raise steam for the works.
The same technique used to make boreholes to extract the salt, is used to hollow caverns in the salt to store gases like hydrogen.
Once, when they were digging salt out of the salt mine at Winsford, a worker broke into an unmarked borehole and ICI nearly lost the mine because of the water rushing in.
Two stories stand out from the rescue of the mine.
- There was a need for dry clothes for all the workers, so ICI took a truck to Marks & Spencer in Northwich and emptied it of anything they might need. I was told the story enriched with plagues of locusts.
- A Ford Transit was found to have travelled a few thousand miles underground in axle deep salt slurry. Rather, than scrap it and buy another, it was offered back to Ford, who were delighted to swap it for a new one. I heard that Ford said, that the accelerated corrosion research would have taken many years, if done on the roads.
Always think out of the box.
Rolls-Royce Provide mtu Trigeneration Plant For Largest Data Centre In Romania
The title of this post, is the same as that of this press release on the Rolls Royce web site.
- mtu Series 4000 gas generator sets to provide electricity, heat and cooling for ClusterPower’s Technology Campus in Craiova
The completed campus will feature five data centers and provide a significant boost to the region’s global IT infrastructure competitiveness - Rolls-Royce, along with its distributor partner Knopf & Wallisch (K&W), has supplied three mtu customized and containerized combined cooling, heat and power plant (CCHP) trigeneration units to Romanian cloud service provider ClusterPower. They will be used for the efficient and sustainable energy supply at its new technology campus near the southern Romanian city of Craiova, where the IT company will open the largest data center in Romania.
The press release also says that trigeneration plants are hydrogen-ready.
The engines are gas engines, that can be converted to running on a mix of 25 % hydrogen and natural gas or eventually to pure hydrogen.
Conclusion
This would appear to be a neat way to sell the end customer an engine that can handle natural gas now and convert it over time to hydrogen.
Romania Wants To Buy Hydrogen-Powered Trains
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Romania Insider.
This is the first paragraph.
Romania’s minister of transport announced that the National Relaunch and Resilience Plan (PNRR) includes the purchase of some 10-12 hydrogen-powered trains for the Bucharest-Pitesti route.
Note that Bucharest and Pitesti are about 120 kilometres apart.
Conclusion
It looks like an ideal route for hydrogen trains.
- New hydrogen trains can probably take over from the current diesel trains with only a few modifications to the tracks and signalling.
- A hydrogen refuelling station would need to be provided.
- The route is not overly long.
- The train manufacturer could be delivering a standard fully-financed package of trains, hydrogen refuelling system and training.
As it is effectively, a replacement of one self-powered train with another, from the time order to in service could be a fairly short time of a couple of years or so.
Romania Could Buy Hydrogen-Fueled Trains
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Romania Insider.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Romania could become the first country in Central and Eastern Europe to buy hydrogen-fueled trains for passenger rail transport, according to Club Feroviar online publication quoted by Economica.net.
Five such trains might be purchased to serve the new North Railway Station – Bucharest Airport line in the country’s capital city, a route that might be opened in 2020, the source said.
It looks like the trains could be off-the-shelf Alstom Coradia iLint trains, like the one in this picture at Buxtehude.
The article says that because the trains are non-polluting, European funding might be available.
Apparently, It’s Romanian Horsemeat!
According to this report on the BBC, the horsemeat at the heart of your burgers and lasagne is of Romanian origin.
What the article doesn’t say is that the reason why horses are being killed in Romania because they are now no longer allowed on the road. This was said by an expert on the BBC News.
So these horses and our consciences are the victims of a Road Safety campaign in Romania.
At least the horses are dead before they are transported all the way across Europe. This couldn’t always be said for some of the meat we export, as it is exported live, so that the recipients can say it is locally killed.
It just shows how stupid everybody involved is, as to take a given number of animals to somewhere in Europe, takes three animal trucks or one refrigerated one. I’ve also taken a competition horse all the way from Suffolk to Scotland, and this needs stops on the way and a good rest in a field or large stable with lots of straw at the end, to make sure the animal is in the correct state to compete.
A farmer friend, who rears top quality meat for Waitrose and others, told me that, the law should be that all meat should be shown as EU-killed in the shop, so that the French, Greeks and Italians, couldn’t say it was locally-killed.
But then when did the EU do something sensible, where animal welfare is concerned.
The Anonymous Widower 