10GW Foundation Project

The 10GW Foundation Project will be the first element of the Supergrid. It will consist of a 10GW wind farm located in the North Sea between the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

The area chosen is particularly suitable in terms of wind resources and characteristics. 

The total area covered by the project will be in the region of 3000 km².

It will consist of about 2000 offshore wind turbines located on the seabed in water depths up to 50m.

A thorough Environmental Impact Assessment will be conducted during the project planning phase. The assessment will seek to identify any impacts associated with the development through all phases of its evolution. Potential impacts can be mitigated through careful strategic planning including diligent site selection, responsible project design and wide consultation with interested stakeholders.

The 10GW Foundation Project will enable the output of the wind farm to be transmitted to the electricity markets of the UK, Germany and the Netherlands.

At the same time it will interconnect the electricity systems of the three countries enabling greater trade of electricity between them.

Project Benefits

• The Project will deliver electricity that is clean, sustainable, secure, reliable and cost competitive.
• It will make a significant contribution towards the reduction of harmful greenhouse gas emissions that will otherwise likely be generated from fossil fuel electricity generation.
• The Project will not only contribute to the global environment through reduction of carbon emissions but will also benefit local marine habitat. Positive impacts of offshore wind farms include the contribution to an increase in local diversity of benthic invertebrates and fish biomass.
• It will add significantly to Europe’s ability to meet its Kyoto targets.
• The output can be sold directly to a number of national markets.
• The Supergrid as a whole has the advantage of connecting geographically dispersed regions and so smoothing out variations in output as weather patterns move across the seas and oceans around Europe.
• The 10GW Foundation Project will demonstrate this potential for aggregation, as the region it connects are sufficiently far apart to benefit from the smoothing effect.
• Peak demand varies across the regions covered by the 10GW Foundation Project due to differences in sunrise and sunset times, lifestyles, uses of electricity and time zones.  The Project can help meet this elongated peak demand and thus confer a capacity credit far greater than if the offshore wind farm was connected to a single national system.
• The Supergrid can be used to increase trading in all forms of power between the connected countries.
• The Supergrid will have a capacity utilisation rate in excess of 70% compared to about 40% for dedicated offshore wind farm connections.
• Finally, the Supergrid will go a long way towards realising the objective of a single electricity market for the EU.