Ventilus

The Ventilus project will connect wind energy from the North Sea to a new electricity connection in West Flanders.

Ventilus: a robust system for bringing offshore power onshore

The Ventilus project will connect wind energy from the North Sea to a new electricity connection in West Flanders. Through its connections to other grid projects, Ventilus will create a robust network for the transmission of renewable energy. This constitutes an important step towards a low-carbon society.

In the interest of society
The Ventilus project meets three needs:

In future, the North Sea will play a prominent role in the Belgian energy mix (generation, imports). Elia is implementing the Ventilus project to bring this 'marine energy' onshore to consumption centres.

Once the Ventilus project is completed, it will also connect new generating facilities in West Flanders to the power grid. This connection's interlinkage with the Stevin line means the project will also help to boost grid reliability in the region and in Belgium as a whole.

Finally, Ventilus will enable a second subsea connection with the UK.

The route

Elia is hard at work conducting preliminary studies for this project (looking into possible landfall sites, the best available technology, and so on). Elia consciously chose to adopt a participatory approach with the Ventilus project. As soon as the initial studies have been completed, a public launch notice will be issued, kicking off a broad notification phase in which citizens, companies, local authorities and civil society organisations will be able to participate. Any comments and suggestions received will be taken on board.

Environment

A Spatial Implementation Plan with integrated plan environmental impact report (plan EIR) will be drawn up for the project with a view to securing approval for this project by the end of 2024 and having the infrastructure in place by the end of 2027. This will enable full use to be made of the next phase of the development of offshore wind energy.
Schedule
The timetable for the Ventilus project is as follows:

2023: Submission of planning permit application.

2024: Start of the work.

2027: End of the work.