To say that it should never have come to the point where the country, along with the rest of Western Europe, surrendered to the whims of Gazprom with its eyes wide open is not considered a particularly original or courageous insight today. If you start whining about that now, you’re pretty late. Anyone looking to catch up with the next trend and lead the way in a new round of the never had we game raises eyebrows when Ningbo Orient Cable squeezes into the power grid.
Ningbo Orient Cable, the Chinese maker of power cables, was recently awarded the contract after a tender from grid operator Tennet to, together with Boskalis – which is ‘ours’, still, or well the shareholders – part of the Dutch to build an electricity network. It concerns two sea cables with a length of 65 kilometers, which will transport the electricity from an offshore wind farm to the mainland. Nice job, Ningbo Orient Cable is a private company and offered the best value for money, nothing to worry about, just walk through.
Until The Financial Times started ringing the bell. It has been restless in the columns ever since. Warning after warning is printed about Chinese interference with critical infrastructure, such as electricity.
From a French researcher who studies security and strategic interests: ‘A major security risk’.
From MPs such as Joost Eerdmans (JA21) and Henri Bontebal (CDA): ‘The Netherlands and Europe really need to become less naive about the role of countries outside Europe, such as China and Russia, in crucial sectors such as the energy sector.’
From the energy editor of the newspaper, who recently put it in the fine FDpodcast daily rate he said: ‘It goes back to the vision of the Chinese state-owned company State Grid. It wants to create a kind of internet for power and establish worldwide connections, with power cables that run from China to Europe and beyond. So that electricity can go from wind farms in China to Europe, or from solar parks in the Sahara to elsewhere in the world. China will then become the supreme switch that connects all power grids.’
Gas roundabout, eat your heart out.
Last Saturday joined the FD the top men of several companies from the offshore and electricity industry join the choir. They advocate ‘stricter selection’ in tenders for the construction of power cables, for example, and strongly warn against the advancing Chinese.
Now you should always be on the lookout when someone who has a business to run and has been fishing behind the power grid starts to fire up the competition, especially if there may be some frustration behind it. For example, the CEO of Van Oord, the dredging company with the beautiful trailing suction hopper dredgers, complains in the newspaper that his company is not getting a foothold in China: ‘Then I think we should be very consistent and do not give room to the Chinese in Europe.’ And so the chairman of the board of power cable maker TKH suggests that ‘you can put sensors in cables that you cannot see, and with which the Chinese can do all kinds of things’, stating that he ‘does not say that there is evidence that it is happening, but that is a concern’.
Undoubtedly flat business interests play a role here, but even if you sift them out, this remains: be careful, draw a line. For strategic independence and security. And for the Uyghurs.