Tennet awards final cable contracts for Dutch and German offshore grid connections

The agreements are worth around €5.5 billion in total and cover six German and three Dutch 2GW offshore grid connections – due online in 2031 – and one German onshore project – to follow in 2032 – Tennet stated.

The contracts are due to be finalised in 2025, ahead of cable-laying activities starting in 2026.

The contracts were awarded to NKT, Nexans and a consortium comprising Jan De Nul Group, LS Cable & System and Denys, and cover cable design, engineering, production, delivery, project management, onshore, offshore and near-shore installation of 525kV HVDC cables and all jointing works. 

They are the final cable system contracts awarded under Tennet’s large-scale grid connection system tender, which was launched in November 2022, covering 14 offshore projects and one onshore corridor project.

Under the latest batch of agreements, NKT will realise connections in the Dutch North Sea for Nederwiek 3, landing onshore at either Geertruidenberg or Moerdijk, and Doordewind 1 and Doordewind 2, landing at Eemshaven.

The agreement is worth around €1.5 billion, according to NKT.

Additional projects could also be added under agreement, it stated. The company had already secured a €2 billion contract with Tennet for the Ijmuiden Ver and Nederwiek 2 connection systems in the Dutch North Sea.

Nexans stated that its deal is worth around €1.7 billion, and also has the possibility of additional projects being added.

It will provide the cable systems for German connections – BalWin3 and LanWin4, landing at Wilhelmshaven, and LanWin2 in Lower Saxony, to be connected in the Heide area in Schleswig-Holstein.

Last month, Tennet awarded a €7 billion contract for the HVDC substation platforms for these three German North Sea grid projects to a consortium comprising Siemens Energy and Dragodos.

Finally, the Jan De Nul, LS Cable and Denys consortium will provide the German connections LanWin5 in the Rastede area and BalWin4 and LanWin1 in Lower Saxony, which will land in the Unterweser area.

In addition, the consortium also secured the contract for TenneT’s part of the NordOstLink onshore 525 kV DC corridor in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, which is being developed in partnership with 50Hertz. 

The combined worth of the consortium’s deal is around €2.3 billion.

All contracts are due to be ‘called off’ and finalised in 2025. The contract winners will start activities this year, with cable laying expected to start in 2026. All of Tennet’s 2 GW offshore projects are expected to be operational by 2031. The NordOstLink project is due to be operational in 2032.