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Update: Electricity trading with Belgium and Norway
Electricity trading with Belgium began in November 2020 – cross-border trade with Norway will follow shortly.
Update from 13 April 2021:
The NordLink interconnector has been fully operational since 12 April 2021. The official inauguration of the world's longest subsea cable electricity link will take place on 27 May 2021.
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Electricity trading with Belgium and Norway as at 19 March 2021
Commercial trade between Germany and Belgium was launched in mid-November 2020 via the Aachen Liège Electricity Grid Overlay (ALEGrO) high voltage direct current (HVDC) underground cable. The new interconnector is approximately 90 kilometres (km) long and has a transmission capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW).
The diagram is a schematic representation of the ALEGrO interconnector.
The NordLink interconnector is the first direct connection between Germany and Norway. It has been in trial operation since December 2020 and is due to go into full operation in spring 2021. The HVDC interconnector is approximately 623 km long, with a 54‑km underground cable in Schleswig-Holstein, a 516‑km subsea cable and a 53‑km overhead line to Tonstad (Norway), and has a transmission capacity of 1,400 MW.
The interconnector has been planned in particular to allow electricity generated using renewable sources to flow between the two countries. When, for example, a lot of wind electricity is generated in Germany and electricity is especially cheap, the electricity can be exported via the interconnector to Norway, where it can be stored in reservoirs. Conversely, when German demand is high, Germany can import the electricity generated using mainly hydropower from Norway.
The diagram is a schematic representation of the NordLink interconnector.
Data on cross-border trade, the physical flow of electricity and wholesale prices in the two countries will also be available shortly on the SMARD website.
Good to know: electricity trading with Belgium is already included in the monthly articles, for instance in the article on electricity generation and electricity trading in February 2021.