Rwe: offshore connection further delayed
RWE’s new CEO peter terium told the "spiegel" that the responsible grid operator tennet had just informed the company that "there are further massive delays in the connection of our offshore wind farm nordsee ost". The economic viability of the project northeast of helgoland is thus in extreme jeopardy. He called on the government to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible and to "talk to the investors about economic compensation".
RWE is investing billions in the wind farms, but the promised grid connections are not available. The federal ministry of economics and the federal ministry of the environment have already set up a working group to speed up grid connection. By the summer recess, the government wants to present a draft law to resolve liability issues in offshore wind energy and thus remove a major obstacle to grid connection. The unclear situation meant that tennet lacked capital to connect the wind farms to the grid. Moreover, the laying of such submarine cables is uncharted territory.
In order to clarify the question of liability, it is being discussed that the network operators could in future claim compensation payments from the operators who become liable as a result of transmission problems with wind power. This could be recovered stronger uber den strompreis again. The connection costs for offshore wind farms are passed on to electricity customers via the grid fees – this is another reason why the price of electricity can rise. By 2030, wind farms with a capacity of 25,000 megawatts are to be built in the north and baltic seas, covering 15 percent of germany’s electricity needs.
