Russia has a programme to sabotage wind farms and communication cables in the North Sea, according to new allegations.
The details come from a joint investigation by public broadcasters in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
It says Russia has a fleet of vessels disguised as fishing trawlers and research vessels in the North Sea.
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They carry underwater surveillance equipment and are mapping key sites for possible sabotage.
In February, Dutch intelligence issued an unusual official warning about activity that could indicate preparation for disruption or sabotage of marine infrastructure. The head of the country's military intelligence said a Russian ship had been detected near a wind farm in the North Sea and was mapping out sites.
"We saw in recent months Russian actors tried to uncover how the energy system works in the North Sea. It is the first time we have seen this," General Jan Swillens said.
Reconnaissance of sensitive sites is not unusual and Western countries will likely be carrying out similar activity against Russia. The intention is likely to have a series of options available should a conflict escalate. One option might be to damage communications or take down countries' power systems to cause chaos.
So far the evidence of actual sabotage rather than just intelligence gathering for the possibility is more limited.
The report raises the possibility such vessels were linked to an incident south of Svalbard last year when an underwater data cable was cut.
The cable served the world largest commercial ground station for satellite communications. Norwegian police have said they believe "human activity" was behind the sabotage but have not officially accused anyone.
2.0 kW/4.62 MWh pa in Ripples, 4.5 kWp W-facing pv, 9.5 kWh batt
30 solar thermal tubes, 2MWh pa in Stockport, plus Congleton and Kinlochbervie Hydros,
Most travel by bike, walking or bus/train. Veg, fruit - and Bees!
What happens here then? The offshore wind farm merrily generates away and then power gets sent to both countries depending upon need/price?
That's cool, and I see TenneT is talking about 11 to 14 such projects of ~2GW connecting multiple countries and wind farms.
I'm theorizing to the absolute extreme here, but take the planned ~20GW of interconnectors for 2030, add on the target of ~20GW of storage, and then the 20-25GW of existing gas generation, and we could be looking good for 2030(ish).
Yes, I appreciate I said gas, but that's to hopefully maintain supply in all conditions, whilst RE steadily displaces the annual volume of gas consumption. Could be looking at a decent foundation as we enter the next decade, with a decent chance of 'net' zero leccy, then expanding/improving from there.
8.7kWp PV [2.12kWp SSW + 4.61kWp ESE PV + 2.0kWp WNW PV]
Two BEV's.
Two small A2A heatpumps.
20kWh Battery storage.
Update - the VikingLink Interconnector to Denmark - cable laying is now complete, making it now the longest sub-sea HVDC interconnector.
All construction is scheduled to be finished by end of 2023, with testing and commissioning in 2024.
Tesla Model 3 Performance
Oversees an 11kWp solar array at work
Hiya Dan, looking at the list of interconnectors on the OFGEM link below, do you know if we are still on course for the 15.9GW listed, or have some been added / dropped / delayed?
Hi Mart
According to my understanding, NorthConnect and GridLink are both dead in the water as their planning applications were rejected by Norway and France respectively. And AQUIND as well (already deleted from the Ofgem page).
FABLink has had a change in its specification and now has a reduced capacity (1200MW) but apparently with just one pair of cables, instead of the previous 2 pairs, which should make it cheaper to build.
However, Greenlink (Ireland), NeuConnect (Germany), Nautilus (Belgim), Eurolink (Netherlands) and FABlink (France) are all still in various stages of active development which would give an additional 6.3GW of interconnectors, so bringing us to around 16GW of cables by 2030.
Last edited by dan_b on Tue Jul 18, 2023 12:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Tesla Model 3 Performance
Oversees an 11kWp solar array at work
