Norway. Statnett SF

The loan totalling EUR 100 million is aimed at financing a 580-kilometre high-voltage power subsea cable, NorNed, between Feda in Norway and Eemshaven in the Netherlands. NorNed will enable Norway, which is dependent on hydropower, to secure its energy supply with imported thermal power when water levels are below normal. The subsea cable will improve energy security for the whole Nordic region. The project is a joint venture between Norway’s state-owned power utility and the Dutch transmission system operator Tennet Holding. Besides the cable, two converter stations will be built to reduce transmission loss to 4%. The high-voltage direct current (HVDC) subsea cable and a major part of the electronic equipment to be installed at Feda and in Eemshaven will be supplied by Swedish ABB. As a transmission system operator, Statnett owns and operates most of the main Norwegian power grid and the Norwegian section of power lines and subsea cables to other countries.

The HVDC technology helps to minimise the environmental impacts both during the placement and the operation. Due assessments have been carried out on possible interference with protected areas, archaeological sites, shipping lanes, gas and oil extraction areas and existing cables and pipes. In the Waddenzee nature protection area on the Dutch side, the cable stretch is located along the edge of the nature conservation area, adjacent to the existing navigation channels following the boat and shipping lanes. In these areas, special care has to be exercised to avoid disturbance. No parts of the cable stretch across closed or ecologically valuable areas. The placement of the cable in the bottom sediments will be a short-term disturbance. A well-developed installation technique limits the clouding of water and thereby minimises the disturbance area. The impacts on the bottom flora and fauna are reversible and have a very limited surface extension. In the operational mode, the environmental effects are very limited and restricted to a weak magnetic field and a slight warming in the close proximity of the cable.