Energy islands are no longer being considered in the Netherlands. Instead, the focus has been shifted to offshore energy hubs and interconnectors. With rising (cyber)security concerns as a result of a number of recent incidents in European waters, as well as the Russia-Ukraine war, diversification of the energy system is high on the agenda. Offshore wind and offshore solar sound just like the perfect couple, but where does hydrogen fit in?
At the Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference (OEEC) panel session on grids and interconnectors, Huygen van Steen, Program Manager Offshore Wind and Energy System at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO), Joris Koornneef, Lead scientist North Sea Energy Program at Dutch research institute TNO, Saskia Jaarsma, Head of Offshore Development – Large Projects Offshore at Dutch transmission system operator (TSO) TenneT, and Michiel van Rij, Country Lead Offshore Wind Development Netherlands at RWE, noted that net zero could not be reached unless the appropriate grid is in place.
According to Koornneef, the Netherlands has challenges in connecting all the offshore wind and renewable energy projects to the grid, as well as the electrification of the biggest consumer of the future, the industry, thus the grid takes time to develop.
“It is a challenging task to get the grid ready in time to electrify all the processes that you can electrify. Then you have challenges to also put in the hydrogen grid, in the Netherlands but also the Northwestern Europe domain, and the CO2 grid. There are three grids that need to develop and all three struggle with deploying in time. This has to do with the spatial constraints in developing the grid, but also the business case to support the whole value chain in investing in those grids, in those future business cases,” Koornneef noted.
All the easy options are gone, prompting investigation at all concepts, as well as deeper inland connections, Van Steen said, speaking from the government perspective. The current focus is on offshore energy hubs which are central points to collect and distribute energy, also allowing the integration of other systems.
“From the government side, we no longer speak of energy islands, but we speak of energy hubs offshore. The foundation concept depends on the location. At the moment we are looking at a big area, called Search Area 6/7, with about 20 GW. I think it will be designated next year. A platform concept for an energy hub will be the most feasible. That is what we are now going to further explore as a first or second step after the interconnector,” Van Steen said.
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