Belgium's transmission system operator Elia has approved an investment of €400m into the Modular Offshore Grid (MOG) in the North Sea.
The MOG will enable to connect the North Sea wind farms such as Rentel, Northwester-2, Mermaid and Seastar directly to the Belgian grid. The four wind parks are expected to amount 1,030 MW. The MOG is also expected to enable future opportunities for wind offshore development and it shall be commissioned in Q3 2019. Once it enters into operation, Elia will operate it.
The MOG project encompasses an offshore platform located 40 km from Zeebrugge. Three 220 kV submarine cables will link the offshore facilities with the Stevin substation in Zeebrugge so that the wind power generation of the aforementioned parks can be injected into the Belgian power grid.
In the meantime, the Elia Group published its Annual Report 2016. The Elia Group is organised around two TSOs, Elia in Belgium and 50 Hertz in Germany. It operates a transmission grid comprising 18,400 km of high-voltage connections, covering about 30 millions customers.
In 2016, it produced 72,867 GWh of electricity. It also reported an installed production capacity of 20,631 MW in 2016 of which 2,292 MW of wind energy, 3,082 MW of PV solar, 5,926 MW of nuclear capacity and 6,546 MW of gas capacity. The company reported investments amounting €440m in Belgium and €737m in Germany for 2016.