In a historic agreement, Germany and Estonia promise to build the Baltic Windconnector, an offshore wind energy project designed to tap the renewable energy potential of the Baltic Sea.

During the Baltic Offshore Wind Forum in Berlin, German transmission system operator 50Hertz and its Estonian counterpart Elering signed the letter of intent for the potential constitution of the proyect.

The Baltic WindConnector will be around 750 kilometres long and will land on the coast of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In addition to the utilisation of green power potential through the connection of future large offshore wind farms off the Estonian Baltic Sea coast, both countries and central Europe will benefit from an increase in security of supply.

At the same time, Estonia has the chance to become an exporting country of green electricity for the European electricity market. The advantage for Germany is to diversify its sources of green electricity in order to achieve climate neutrality by 2045 and to almost completely decarbonise its industry.

"The Baltic Sea still offers a lot of potential for the expansion of offshore wind energy and therefore for cross-border projects to develop this potential as efficiently as possible via hybrid interconnectors or energy islands,” Stefan Kapferer, CEO of 50Hertz, said.

”Cooperation with the Baltic states and their stronger connection to the continental European electricity system is important for a climate-neutral Europe and also of great significance in terms of security policy. The Baltic WindConnector should be a first important step on this path", he added.

With a hybrid interconnector, wind farms feed their electricity into a transmission system that can also be used for European electricity trading. It therefore fulfils a dual function. This requires the construction of one or more converter plants off the coast of Estonia, where the electricity can be accumulated, wound up to a higher voltage level, converted to direct current and then transported to the connected countries according to demand.

Taavi Veskimägi, Chairman of the board of Elering said that "Estonia has significantly more resources for the development of offshore wind farms than is needed to ensure our own security of supply. The analyzes will show us whether the electricity connection with Germany, as a large consumption center, will allow us to increase the export potential here without spending the Estonian consumer's money". 

Finally, Stefan Wenzel, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), explained that "reliable imports of renewable electricity and green hydrogen from the North and Baltic Sea region are developing into a relevant building block for the German energy transition and can make a decisive contribution to Europe's independence from fossil fuels. In the next 10 years, the aim is to develop concrete projects for renewable electricity and green hydrogen with our partner countries such as the Baltic States and to exploit synergy effects. With the multilateral declaration of the Baltic Offshore Wind Forum and the memorandum of understanding signed today by the Transmission System Operators, important steps have been taken to jointly develop offshore wind energy in the Baltic Sea region".