With investments of around 235 million euros, grid operator 50Hertz has built a new power line through Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Saxony. This will replace a significantly less efficient existing line. The new 380 kV overhead line will increase transmission capacity by up to 40 percent, said Stefan Kapferer, CEO of 50Hertz, at the commissioning ceremony in Vieselbach near Erfurt. The grid reinforcement was necessary in order to be able to safely and efficiently provide all consumers in Germany with the increasing amounts of electricity generated from renewable energies in the north and east.
Thuringia as an electricity hub
Thuringia's Minister President Mario Voigt (CDU) said that the Free State had become a central energy hub in Germany due to its location. "It is unacceptable that we are a connecting state and are often the ones who pay the most expensive surcharges for grid fees." Voigt said that this could not be right. This must be discussed throughout Germany.
For another important grid project - the long-disputed Suedlink power line - the first work has started following the approval in southern Thuringia. Suedlink is one of the most important projects of the energy transition. When it is completed, probably at the end of 2028, underground cables with a transmission capacity of four gigawatts will transport wind power from the north to the south of Germany.
The 700-kilometre underground route begins near Brunsbüttel in Schleswig-Holstein and runs through the middle of Germany to Bergrheinfeld near Schweinfurt in Lower Franconia. With the section between southern Thuringia and Franconia, the joint route project of the two transmission system operators TransnetBW and Tennet is under construction in a total of six federal states.
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