In addition to the North Sea, the Baltic Sea is also to become a "green European power plant". To this end, Germany and the Baltic States want to cooperate more closely in the generation and transmission of offshore offshore offshore wind power. On Tuesday, transmission system operators from Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania signed a memorandum of understanding at the Baltic Offshore Wind Forum at the Federal Foreign Office in order to implement "meshed offshore grids" off the Baltic coast for various customers in the future. In another paper, 50Hertz from Berlin and its counterpart Elering from Tallinn (Estonia) agree on the concrete planning for a hybrid submarine cable. According to information from the F.A.Z., this "Baltic Wind Connector" will run over 750 kilometers to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The plan is to integrate a new Estonian wind farm and a converter platform. The capacity is expected to reach 2 gigawatts (GW).

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The technology is called hybrid because it can conduct electricity in all directions: for example, solar power from the Estonian mainland directly to Germany or the offshore energy of the new wind farm to the Baltic States or the Federal Republic of Germany, depending on requirements. The converter is a rectifier because the current is transported with a voltage of 525,000 volts as direct current to minimize transmission losses.

The Wind Forum will be opened by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) and her Danish counterpart Lars Løkke Rasmussen. 50Hertz is already working with Denmark in the Baltic Sea: wind turbines with a capacity of 3 GW are to be built around the island of Bornholm, with the electricity going to Germany via a 470-kilometre-long submarine cable. The Memorandum of Understanding with the Danish contractor Energinet was signed in 2020, and the Bornholm Energy Island is scheduled for completion in 2030. The project will cost 9 billion euros. Similarly, the Baltic Wind Connector could be ready in 2032 and is expected to require tens of billions of euros in investment.

So far, less than 3 GW of wind power has been installed in the Baltic Sea, and Germany alone maintains almost 7 GW in the North Sea. However, at a summit in 2022, the Baltic Sea countries agreed to expand to 2030 GW by 19. 50Hertz CEO Stefan Kapferer sees the connection of the Baltic States to the continental European electricity network as an important contribution to climate neutrality and security policy. Elering boss Taavi Veskimägi points out that his country could potentially generate much more wind energy than it needs and could therefore possibly supply Germany. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is interested in diversifying the purchase of green electricity. Of course, the distance to the neighbouring sea remains large: a North Sea summit recently held out the prospect of expansion there to 2030 GW by 120.