Eisenhüttenstadt – Transmission system operator 50Hertz is planning to reinforce the European power transmission grid between Germany and Poland. To this end, a new overhead power line will be constructed between the substations of Eisenhüttenstadt in Germany and Plewiska in Poland. The first step in the planning process is the spatial planning procedure, which starts with the public consultation of the documents on 14 January 2013.
The citizens of Eisenhüttenstadt and the administrations of Schlaubetal and Brieskow-Finkenheerd have been invited to an information meeting dealing with the subject on 24 January 2013 by the city council of Eisenhüttenstadt and the spatial planning authority competent for Brandenburg, i.e. the Joint Berlin-Brandenburg Planning Department (GL). The meeting starts at 18:00 hours and will take place in the city council meeting room of the Eisenhüttenstadt city hall.
The planning and approval procedures will take several years to complete. The German part of the procedure will be planned and implemented by the TSO responsible for north-eastern Germany, Berlin-based company 50Hertz. As regards spatial planning, project developer 50Hertz is searching for a suitable corridor for the line route, under the aegis of the spatial planning authority. 50Hertz project manager Bernhard Segbers: "The objective is to keep the impact on the surroundings and the interference with other land uses to a strict minimum."
The information meeting of 24 January 2013 and the public consultation of documents should help coordinate the different land uses in the affected area between Eisenhüttenstadt and the border. The spatial planning authority (the Joint Berlin-Brandenburg Planning Department) is kept up to date on the procedure's formal progress. 50Hertz will introduce the project and provide an explanation of the documents drawn up for the spatial planning procedure. The planning documents can be consulted on site and related questions can be discussed with the GL and 50Hertz employees.
The corridor between the substations of Eisenhüttenstadt and an as of yet undetermined supply point at the German-Polish border will cover a distance of five to ten kilometres, depending on the option selected. The Eisenhüttenstadt substation is connected to the extra high voltage line between the substations of Preilack (district Spree-Neiße) and Neuenhagen bei Berlin. In the scope of the project, this grid connection needs to be reinforced over a stretch of some seven kilometres to enable optimal use of the future European interconnector.
50Hertz currently estimates that the spatial planning procedure will continue into 2014. After this, 50Hertz will commence specific route planning and prepare the actual authorisation procedure: the plan approval procedure. The procedure needs to keep pace with the project's progress on the Polish side of the border at all times.
The expansion of the international interconnection is the final objective of the European policy. The 3rd interconnector project is therefore a European priority project. In the Energy Line Extension Act (EnLAG) of 2009, the Bundestag declared that the project was urgently needed. The 3rd interconnector is also featured in the national grid development plan of 2012, which was recently adopted by the German Federal Government as a federal requirement plan and has now been submitted to the Bundestag for approval.
Further information on the project can be found online at http://50hertz.com/en/Grid-Extension.
Under 3rd interconnector, interested parties can consult regularly updated information.
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