Ostwind 3

An onshore cable system of about five kilometres in length will run south of Lubmin city from a new substation to be constructed in the Lubmin/Brünzow/Wusterhusen and Kemnitz survey area to the landing point in the port area of Vierow. From there on, a submarine cable of around 100 kilometres is planned which leads to the offshore substation in wind farm area O-1.3. You can find out more about the 50Hertz offshore substation here.

Offshore route

In order to minimise the impact on the environment, it is important to keep the length of the cable as short as possible and, if possible, bundle it with existing cables. For this reason, 50Hertz is planning to install about two thirds of the submarine cable system in parallel with the existing lines of projects Ostwind 1 and 2. The 220-kV sea cable transports the electricity generated in the wind farm from the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) through the coastal waters and the Greifswalder Bodden to the so-called landing point in the port area around Vierow. The port area of Vierow is located in the municipality of Brünzow in the district of Vorpommern-Greifswald in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. The landing point is where the sea cable meets land.

Onshore route

From the landing point in the port area of Vierow, the electricity generated at sea is transported further via land cable to the onshore substation. The land cable of around five kilometres in length is laid as an underground cable. The land cable route should run as straight as possible and is subject to a number of spatial planning criteria. Intersections with other lines, buildings, residential areas, streets and gas lines shall for instance be avoided as much as possible. Nature conservation areas and forests shall also be avoided.

Here you can find more information about the construction method.

Onshore substation

For the Ostwind 3 grid connection project, 50Hertz is planning to build a new substation, in which the current will be transformed from 220 kilovolts (kV) to 380 kV.  The existing substation in the neighbouring municipality of Lubmin no longer offers the possibility to connect additional sea cables. Due to lack of additional space, this is not possible. Furthermore, technical grid aspects play an important role here: the connection of an additional system to this site, which already has two offshore grid connections, would pose a considerably larger risk of disturbances and system outages.

After a detailed examination, a new substation will therefore be built for the grid connection. For the onshore grid connection, the survey area in the municipalities Lubmin/Brünzow/Wuhsterhusen and Kemnitz was specified in Grid Development Plan 2030 (2019). Within this area, an extensive and careful examination of many different criteria will be performed to decide on the final location. The site should, for instance, be located outside of nature conservation areas and drinking water protection zones as far as possible. The distance to residential and settlement areas shall also be taken into account. The traffic connection of the substation shall also be possible via suitable streets and rails. Moreover, the existing 50Hertz extra high-voltage grid, in this case a 380-kV overhead line, shall also be nearby, so that the substation can be connected to the 50Hertz grid. This way, the connection of additional lines is avoided.