Peter Sjöberg

Co-founder  and currently Vice President of Sales at OBEO

The 2GW Program Through the Eyes of Employer and Contractor
Systems Engineers

Bio.

Abstract.

The TenneT 2GW Program represents one of the largest
ongoing offshore transmission initiatives in Europe,
comprising fourteen high-voltage direct current (HVDC) grid
connection systems, each capable of transmitting 2 GW of
renewable energy from offshore wind farms in the North Sea
to consumers in Germany and the Netherlands. To enable a
more efficient delivery of this portfolio, TenneT has
introduced Systems Engineering (SE) practices based on
ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288 with a systems approach and early
verification. A systems engineering tool has been set up to
support this effort.
This presentation examines the program through the
perspectives of both employers, TenneT, and con-tractors,
Hitachi Energy, a major HVDC supplier participating in six
of the 2GW projects, systems engineers. The presentation
draws on experiences from mainly four projects over the
past three years, spanning tender and design phases.
Attention is given to the interaction between TenneT’s
program-level SE framework set up and the engineering,
architectural, and delivery approaches of Hitachi Ener-gy
to meet, support and benefit from this framework.
The presentation explores how SE objectives, structures,
and information models established by the employer are
interpreted and implemented within a contractor
organization operating its own established engineering
processes and system architectures. The findings highlight
both opportunities and challenges associated with aligning
differing architectural viewpoints, re-use requirements and
design, and introducing early verifications. Benefits
observed include increased reuse of contractual
requirements enabling improved consistency between
projects, enhanced traceability, and opportunities for
design reuse that contribute to shortened engineering
cycles and improved quality in later projects. Challenges
include organizational changes, recovery and reconstruction
of SE data, two different architectural reference systems,
and the practical integration of customer-driven SE
frameworks with con-tractor-specific ways of working.
The experiences presented provide insights into the ongoing
adoption of Systems Engineering within the energy sector
and the HVDC industry, emphasizing the importance of
governance, architecture alignment, data quality, and
collaboration between employer and contractor
organizations. The presentation concludes with lessons
learned, recommendations for large-scale infrastructure
programs, and reflections on future developments in the
application of Systems Engineering to complex energy
transition projects.