Eiffage, De Romein JV receives engineering contract for German Rhein-Main-Link project

A worker routes cable into an open manhole in the street. (Image: Adobe Stock)

Civil engineering construction company Eiffage Group, the French parent firm of Eiffage Infra-Bau, said the JV will build infrastructure necessary to transport electricity produced by offshore wind farms in the North Sea to the Rhein-Main region near the city of Frankfurt and in the German states of Hesse, Rhineland-Palatinate and Bavaria.

“The contract involves the creation of an energy corridor from Lower Saxony to the economic region of Hesse by building a 600km cable conduit system,” said Eiffage.

A value for the contract was not available.

Following a collaborative design phase with owner Amprion, Eiffage said work will be delivered between 2028 and 2032.

Consulting companies Arcadis, based in the Netherlands, and German firm ILF Beratende Ingenieure were announced as initial conceptional design partners in September 2023.

“Once completed, this corridor will accommodate four electricity transmission lines, each with a capacity of 2 GW. The total 8 GW transmitted will meet the growing electricity needs of the Rhein-Main region, providing low-carbon energy to both industries and its nearly six million inhabitants,” said Eiffage.

The entire project, which includes four regional links, is expected to cost ‘several billion dollars’. Prysmian Group, an Italy-based electric cable producer, said in February it signed a contract worth around €5 billion (US$5.6 billion) to provide about 4,400km of HVDC and DMR cables.