Elia, Belgium’s high-voltage transmission system operator, has been given a green light for the construction of the Belgian Offshore Grid project.
According to the Company’s website, the project for a high-voltage grid in the North Sea involves cooperation with the promoters of future wind farms and the authorities.
The offshore meshed grid off the Belgian coast will be built in stages.
It will consist of the Alpha and Beta platforms which will be interconnected with one another and will also be connected by 220-kV cables to the Stevin substation, which will be built near the port area of Zeebrugge.
Each of the platforms will feature a fully-fledged high-voltage GIS substation with the transformers required to accommodate the 66-kV and 220-kV cables coming from various wind farms.
As reNews reports, the network was originally due to go live between 2015 and 2017.
Subsea World News Staff, July 23, 2014; Image: Enerdata