Lex Hartman on offshore wind power

"A pragmatic approach is key"

To make the Netherlands' energy systems more sustainable calls for extensive use of offshore wind generation. The government itself is coming to realise this, and has decided that TenneT is to play a key role. "The ambitions are extremely high," states Lex Hartman, Director of Corporate Development.

On his office wall hangs a framed certificate from the Guinness Book of World Records, acknowledging that the NorNed cable is the world's longest subsea high-voltage connection. Lex Hartman looks at it proudly. "It is a great thrill to be part of the team working on such an innovative project," he says. And indeed, he intends doing so again. Plans for the COBRA project, which will establish a similar connection with Denmark, are now in an advanced stage while a 'NorNed2' cable is also on the drawing board. These cables will enable the Netherlands to take better advantage of sustainable energy sources such as hydroelectric power and wind energy.

The greatest sustainability challenge for TenneT is to integrate the production from offshore wind farms into the national grid. "The ambitions are extremely high. The government is working on the assumption that output will be 6000 megawatts by 2020. That is sixty times greater than that of the first wind farm off the coast of Egmond. The Ministry of Economic Affairs has adopted this figure as the target and is planning accordingly. Parliament is to press for amendments to the existing legislation so that the national grid manager becomes responsible for connecting all offshore wind farms." Since the political ambitions have been so clearly defined, TenneT sees few obstacles to the preliminary studies. Just as well, since 2020 is not very far away.

The initial survey suggests that it will indeed be possible to integrate a further 6000 megawatts into the current grid. "In fact, in theory we could go up to 10,000. However, for anything above 6000 megawatts we would also have to include storage facilities in our plans." In TenneT's proposed approach, the keyword is efficiency. "We wish to create the most efficient connection possible, which must be a sort of 'plug and play' arrangement. The physical infrastructure should be laid in such as way as to allow the wind farms to be connected with a minimum of effort."

Every aspect of the plan calls for a pragmatic approach, Hartman stresses. "There are designs for artificial islands, each with storage reservoirs. But why invest billions when nature has provided exactly the same thing for nothing in Norway?" Moreover, we have to consider new ideas, such as the 'vehicle to grid' principle mentioned by Wubbo Ockels. "It is possible that electric cars could play a part in storing the electricity produced by the wind farms at night."