The logistics challenges behind SuedOstLink

One of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects, SuedOstLink, is reshaping Germany’s power grid, transporting renewable energy across the country. But behind the cables and substations lies a complex web of project logistics, requiring dynamic route planning, bespoke infrastructure, and strategic staging to keep the energy flowing.

SuedOstLink is one of Europe’s largest infrastructure projects, being built in Germany by transmission system operator TenneT. It will deliver power from renewable assets in northern and eastern Germany to Bavaria in southern Germany, and also from Bavaria to the north.

In April 2020 Nils Sauerborn, vertical manager of transmission projects in the global wind renewable energy team at deugro, was part of the tender team that responded to the request for multiple proposals for SuedOstLink. “It was an extensive tender and took more than 2.5 years to finalise various aspects of the project,” he recalled. “Most of that was during the pandemic, so things had to be revised because logistics budgets went sky high.”

deugro won tenders for two storage/staging yards, one in Kelheim and the other in Regensburg, as well as delivery of the cable drums from the yards to the jobsites. The term ‘yard’ is a bit of a misnomer: each field is 25,000 sq m. For the whole project there are 850 cable spools, each 4.1 m in diameter and weighing up to 86 tonnes.

Rhenus Project Logistics delivered cable drums from France to southern Germany for the SuedOstLink power transmission line. The underground cables were produced by Prysmian, one of the leading cable manufacturers, at its plant in Gron, near Paris. According to Moritz Becker, co-vice president and director of Rhenus Project Logistics – Global, the spools were transported by inland waterway to the port of Radicâtel near Le Havre, then by coaster through the English Channel to Rotterdam, and from there by inland waterway across the Rhine to the staging yards in Regensburg or Kelheim.