Wind power for North Rhine-Westphalia and the Rhine-Main region: Amprion awards civil engineering contracts worth billions

Amprion has awarded civil engineering contracts for more than 1,300 kilometers of underground cable route. The contracts for the direct current projects Korridor B and Rhein-Main-Link were concluded with three consortia. Amprion had developed a new contract model for the tender, which has already won international awards.

​​The extensive civil engineering services for the Korridor B and Rhein-Main-Link projects were bundled and put out to tender for the first time in a joint procurement program. The aim is to secure the important external resources for civil engineering on the market in the early project phase of both projects. In this way, Amprion prevents cost increases and minimizes project risks.

​“The innovative procurement program is part of our strategy to secure capacity and creates long-term planning security for us and our partners,” said Amprion CFO Peter Rüth. “This allows us to optimize planning and approval at an early stage and organize construction in the best possible way. This helps us to push ahead with major energy transition projects on time and on budget,” added Rüth.

​With their high transmission capacity, the Amprion Korridor B and Rhein-Main-Link projects play an important role in achieving the German and European climate targets. “All in all, both underground cable connections will ensure that green electricity can be transported safely for millions of households and industry in the future. Today's award is an important step in this direction,” said Dr. Hendrik Neumann, CTO of Amprion.

​​A total of twelve companies commissioned

​Various companies had joined forces to submit bids. Eiffage Infra-Bau and DeRomein were jointly awarded the contract for the civil engineering services in the Rhein-Main-Link project. The companies Max Streicher and Leonhard Weiss were awarded the contract for the work on the southern section of Korridor B. The civil engineering work for the northern section of the project will be carried out jointly by Johann Bunte, Depenbrock Bau, Anton Meyer, Bernhard Heckmann, Knoll, Reinhard Rohrbau, Hölscher Wasserbau and Epping Rohrvortrieb.

Award for innovative contract model

In order to be able to design the contract with the partners in the best possible way, Amprion had developed an approximately 60 kilometer long reference route. This enabled the companies to better assess the structural implementation of the two underground cable projects, calculate reference costs on this basis and submit their bids. The International Construction Project Management Association (ICPMA) presented the contract model with an award in New York in June 2024.

Electricity from the north for NRW: Korridor B

Korridor B comprises pipeline construction projects 48 and 49 from the Federal Requirements Plan Act (Bundesbedarfsplangesetz). From the beginning of the 2030s, the approximately 710-kilometre-long connection will transmit direct current via underground cable from Schleswig-Holstein and northern Lower Saxony to North Rhine-Westphalia. The legislator has provided an additional empty conduit system for each of the two projects. This will bring the total transmission capacity to eight gigawatts of electrical power. This corresponds to the energy requirements of around eight million people.
More information on  Corridor B

Central component of the energy transition: Rhein-Main-Link

The Rhein-Main-Link is one of the central grid expansion projects of the energy transition. The project bundles four direct current underground cable projects to transport up to eight gigawatts of offshore wind energy from Lower Saxony to Hesse. The high-performance energy corridor is intended to strengthen the Rhine-Main economic region from 2033 and relieve the transmission grid as a kind of bypass to the existing grid.
More information on the  Rhein-Main-Link