TenneT Offshore GmbH is teaming with Innogy SE and Vattenfall AB to assess the feasibility of interconnectors for offshore wind farms across the North Sea.

TenneT, a Dutch-German transmission system operator, signed a letter of intent with German renewable energy developer innogy to jointly investigate the opportunities and challenges of offshore wind cross-border interconnectors across the North Sea. The parties will initially investigate feasible design options, the economic rationale, as well as regulatory and market requirements of such a combined and international infrastructure.

"Given WindEurope's forecasts of the planned deployment of up to 70 GW (of) offshore wind by 2030, new approaches must be investigated to connect large-scale offshore wind to the onshore grids," TenneT CEO Mel Kroon said in a June 13 news release. "A North Sea Wind Power Hub system supports the deployment of significantly larger volumes of offshore wind. The cooperation with innogy offers us a perfect opportunity to investigate such new approaches."

TenneT is also working with Swedish energy group Vattenfall to assess the technical feasibility, regulatory challenges and the benefits of running an interconnector between a substation in the designated offshore wind area IJmuiden Ver in Dutch waters, to one of Vattenfall's substations in U.K. waters.

By running a high voltage cable between two planned offshore substations, U.K. and Dutch electricity markets would be further interconnected, enabling more power to be traded between these two market through the wind transmission infrastructure, TenneT said in a separate release.

TenneT Offshore operates as a subsidiary of TenneT Holding BV.