TenneT has developed a vision for building a large European electricity system in the North Sea, based on a 'hub and spoke' principle. Central to the vision is the building of an island in the middle of the North Sea to which numerous wind farms can be connected.
From the island, the generated wind electricity will be distributed and transmitted over direct current cables to the North Sea countries, i.e. the Netherlands, UK, Belgium, Norway, Germany and Denmark. With the same direct current cables serving as interconnections between the energy markets of the aforementioned countries, so besides distributing electricity generated by wind they will also be international electricity highways for international power trade: the Wind-connector. The island will be situated in a location with relatively high and stable wind speed. TenneT’s thinking is based on an island with a modular structure, with each module covering approximately 6 km². This is big enough to provide space for connecting roughly 30GW of offshore wind capacity. The island will be expandable by adding one or two modules of 6 km² each.
