And finally.. Belgium floats North Sea energy island plan
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Queen Elisabeth Island (Elia Group)
Belgian grid operator Elia is behind plans for what the company says ”will be the world’s first artificial energy island.”
The Princess Elisabeth Island will be located almost 45 kilometres off the Belgian coast and will serve as the link between the offshore wind farms in the country’s second offshore wind zone, also called the Princess Elisabeth zone, which will have a maximum capacity of 3.5 GW, and its onshore high-voltage grid.
The energy island will also be the first building block of a European offshore electricity grid that will serve as a central hub for new interconnectors with the UK and Denmark, Elia said.
“We are going to build a multifunctional energy island in the North Sea which will interconnect our wind turbines … but at the same time it will also allow the storage and production of green hydrogen,” Belgian energy minister Tinne Van der Straeten said last week.
The energy island could be finalised by 2025, an “ambitious but feasible” target Van der Straeten said and could be the first of its kind to be realised, even before the finalisation of an energy island in Denmark, the minister added.
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