The North Seas Countries' Offshore Grid Initiative - Initial ... - Benelux

RES+ commentary
The RES+ sensitivity differs from the Reference Scenario in that it assumes a larger growth
in offshore wind generation at an accelerated rate. For Great Britain, the total installed
capacity in the RES+ sensitivity in 2030 is 49.8GW compared with 17.7GW in the Reference
Scenario. The amount of Offshore RES is based on National Grid’s consulted Accelerated
Growth scenario and is therefore not consistent with Government’s projections [25]. The
installed capacity of the other generator types remains the same along with the assumed
merit order.
With the radial design for the RES+ sensitivity there are many more connections from
offshore wind farms that of the Reference Scenario design. As with the Reference Scenario
results there are system reinforcements required along the north to south transmission
routes to cater for the power flows at the time of high wind farm output.
To accommodate the Dogger Bank and Norwegian interconnector to the north east of
England there is a requirement for an additional HVDC circuit spanning from the northeast
of England to the Humber area.
With the larger capacity of installed wind generation in this scenario there are several
instances of the interconnectors exporting to the continent. Of interest is the predominant
import to Great Britain from France in all of the selected planning cases while other
interconnectors to the east and west of Great Britain regularly change flow direction.
With the meshed design there is additional interconnection to Germany, Belgium and the
Netherlands that was not in the radial design. This meshed interconnection shares
transmission capacity with the connections of the offshore windfarms but as
interconnection capacity is significantly increased the periods of contention should not be
minimal.
Within Great Britain the interconnection of the wind farms on the English east coast helps
support the north to south power flows and the direct HVDC circuit linking the northeast
of England to the Humber area is not required in the meshed design.
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