Energie Baden-Württemberg AG ( EnBW ), an energy provider based in Karlsruhe, southwestern Germany, has signed a €500 million ( US$569 million ) loan to support SuedLink, one of the country’s largest energy transition projects.

The loan is provided by an international banking consortium consisting of Crédit Agricole CIB, HSBC, and ING. The financing is secured by a guarantee from the Danish export credit agency Eifo, which covers €475 million of the loan facility. EnBW is the first company to implement export credit agency ( ECA ) financing for investments in the German electricity grid.

SuedLink is a massive underground high-voltage direct current ( HVDC ) transmission link in Germany designed to transport renewable energy from the wind-rich north of the country – primarily from wind farms in the Baltic and North Sea – to the industrial, high-consumption south.

This makes SuedLink central to Europe’s electrification and energy security. Both are key strategic focus areas for Eifo.

Construction is expected to be completed in 2028 and is being developed by two German transmission system operators, including TransnetBW, in which EnBW is the majority shareholder. 

The project spans approximately 700 kilometres and consists of two parallel underground HVDC links connecting Schleswig-Holstein with Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. The southern section, managed by TransnetBW, is 450 kilometres long and is being built using high-voltage cables supplied and installed by Danish company NKT.