Energy Transition
Construction Starts on Major German North-South Power Line
Ground has been broken for the SuedLink project that, as its German name makes clear, will provide the industrial south with power from the windy north.
Jul 28, 2023
Construction was inaugurated at the site of a facility in Leingarten in southwestern Germany that will convert direct into alternating current electricity. The converter will go operational in 2026 with SuedlLink as a whole to follow two years later.
The converter is the southern end of a roughly 700-kilometer-long direct current power line starting in Brunsbüttel in the north. It will be run by network operator Transnet BW.
“We have to jointly accelerate the expansion of our power network,” said Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck at the inauguration. “In the next two decades, we need thousands of kilometers of additional networks. These must be planned, approved and built as rapidly as possible.”
There are currently 119 projects ongoing to build some 14,000 kilometers of power lines in Germany, said Habeck’s ministry. Some 2,000 kilometers of them are already operational.
