TenneT's LanWin2 has crossed a threshold that few German North Sea grid connections have reached: both of its main hardware streams are now physically in production at the same time. In Halden, Norway, Nexans has started industrial-scale extrusion of 525 kV HVDC XLPE subsea cable; in Italy and the UAE, steel blocks for the offshore converter platform are being cut and welded for shipment to Dragados Offshore's Algeciras yard in Spain.
The simultaneity matters commercially. For most of 2023–2025 LanWin2 existed as paper — framework agreements, call-offs and design packages. It is now a project with a fabrication supply chain that can be mapped, and with procurement decisions largely locked in.
What LanWin2 actually is
LanWin2 is a 2 GW HVDC connection that will move North Sea wind power to the Heide region of Schleswig-Holstein. It belongs to TenneT's standardised "2 GW programme" — a family of nominally identical connections (BalWin3, LanWin4 and others) intended to compress design, permitting and manufacturing cycles.
The project splits into two procurement universes that should not be conflated:
| Package | Contractor | Scope | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Export cable system (~250 km, 525 kV HVDC XLPE, onshore + offshore) | Nexans | EPCI — design, supply, installation | In production (Halden) |
| Offshore converter platform ("LanWin beta") | Siemens Energy / Dragados Offshore consortium | HVDC technology + platform EPC and topside integration | Block fabrication underway; integration at Algeciras |
| Jacket design | KCI the engineers (Sif Group) | Structural design | Reported awarded (Aug 2025) |
Nexans is an EPCI contractor for the cable package only — not a general project EPC. The approximately €1 billion call-off, announced 15 January 2025, sits under a framework agreement signed with TenneT in May 2023 that also covered BalWin3 and LanWin4. LanWin2 was the third call-off under that framework, not the first. The Siemens Energy/Dragados consortium contract dates to April 2023 and spans three German projects: LanWin2, BalWin3 and LanWin4.
The steel chain: who is actually cutting metal
The single most useful clarification for suppliers is that Dragados Offshore is the platform prime, but it is not fabricating the steel blocks itself. First steel was cut on 30 September 2025 at Cimolai in Italy and Eversendai in the UAE. Those blocks will be shipped to Algeciras, where Dragados began construction works on 21 April 2026 — receiving upper grillage beams and starting assembly of the structural grillage that will carry the topside.
The topside, per TenneT, is roughly 106 m long, 77 m wide and 40 m high. That is a large steel structure by any measure, but TenneT and Dragados have not published tonnage figures, and no reliable public estimate should be inferred from dimensions alone.
Algeciras is itself a strategic bet. TenneT's February 2025 announcement of the new Spanish yard positioned it as the production site for LanWin2 and BalWin3 topsides from 2026 — a deliberate choice to build a repeatable platform line outside the congested North Sea fabrication clusters.
Procurement: mostly closed, with a caveat
For structural steel suppliers, the honest reading is that the primary fabrication packages are placed. Block fabrication is contracted to Cimolai and Eversendai; integration is Dragados'; HVDC technology is Siemens Energy's; cable is Nexans'. The jacket design has gone to KCI. Any suggestion that major structural steel for LanWin2 remains open for tender is not supported by the public record.
What remains genuinely unresolved is jacket fabrication — the design award to KCI does not by itself identify who will build the structure, and no fabrication contract has been publicly confirmed. That is the one structural package where the public trail goes cold, and it should be treated as unverified rather than as an open opportunity.
Downstream, the remaining milestones are integration, testing and offshore installation — the latter two being installation and marine spreads rather than fabrication.
The cable milestone deserves more attention than it has had
Nexans' 16 October 2026 start of industrial-scale 525 kV HVDC XLPE subsea cable production at Halden is, on the company's own framing, the first industrial-scale production of this technology. That is a qualification milestone as much as a manufacturing one: 525 kV XLPE subsea insulation has been the pacing technology for Europe's next generation of HVDC links, and moving from qualification to serial extrusion is where programmes typically discover their real yield and throughput limits.
For LanWin2 specifically, it also pins the critical path. Cable extrusion, armouring and load-out for 250 km of onshore and offshore system is a multi-year activity; starting it in late 2026 is consistent with energisation in the early 2030s, not 2030.
The schedule has quietly slipped
Nexans' January 2025 announcement stated commissioning expected in 2030. Trade reporting in October 2026, citing Nexans and TenneT, gives 2031. TenneT's February 2025 yard announcement had already differentiated the two sister projects — BalWin3 from 2030, LanWin2 from 2031.
Delivery planning should use 2031. The 2030 figure is stale and appears to have been carried forward from earlier programme assumptions.
Why it matters beyond one project
LanWin2 is a test of whether TenneT's standardisation strategy actually transfers risk away from individual projects and into a repeatable industrial line — same platform dimensions, same 525 kV cable, same two fabrication subcontractors feeding one integration yard. If Algeciras can absorb LanWin2 and BalWin3 topsides on a common cadence, the model becomes the template for the rest of the German 2 GW fleet. If the Spanish yard becomes the bottleneck, three projects slip together.
The next observable checkpoints are the arrival and joining of Cimolai and Eversendai blocks at Algeciras, and the disclosure of a jacket fabricator.
