In a flat, flat green plain north of Hamburg in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany, a Herrenknecht tunnel boring machine is now 200 meters deep to be surrounded under the Elete River estuary. At this point, the river, near its mouth in Cuxhaven and the open sea of Wadden, is located in a mile and a half.
The Herrenknecht machine is erasing the way for a key link of Germany’s plans to distribute and balance the wind power out of the sea with the power generated solar power in the south of the country as part of the Südlink connector. At 430 miles, Südlink is one of the longest underground power lines in the world, according to the engineering consultant Jacobs.
Germany is in the midst of a remuneration close to its energy combination, pressured to several sides due to climate change goals, the closure of its nuclear supplies, and most immediately by the continuous war in Ukraine. The Südlink tunnel under the river – the Elbe project is called Elbx – Route Six 525 KV cables and associated accommodation, security, control and control of the rays for maintenance vehicles; The cables link to converters near Brunsbüttel and Wilster. Südlink will also connect with Nordlink, the long underground connector with the North Sea wind and Norway. Brunsbüttel houses a new terminal to download the Liquid Natural Gas provided by the United States.
The TBM Herrenknecht, a state -of -the -art mixsheld specifically shaped in heterogeneous soil under the large river, is at the smallest part of German company global offers only 4.9 meters away. This is a classic Mixsheld machine that will use some useful features, according to Herrenknecht Traffic Tunneling Head of Project Management, Matthias Schwärzel. “There are special clay layers directly under the Elbe,” he says. “We have unique and particular land conditions.” There is also peat, sand, gravel, as well as pebbles and stones to fight also on the way.
Fully lying, the boreal measures 190 meters and weighs 700 tons. The machine is currently climbing in the section section by section: The shield progresses and the lifts are installed behind. “We also have a pipe extension system. The slurry circuit is always based on pipes, so once the machine advances, the pipes must be expanded. And we can install 13 meters of pipes in one go.” Schwärzel says it is very particular for such a small machine with diameter.
Herrenknecht’s Elbx Machine installs the tunnel’s coating while moving forward and adapts to the railway installations and brackets for the installation of the cable. It is a semi-nontinuous movement. The machine reached the site in August 2024; He started making a tunnel in March 2025, shortly before the Bauma Triennial Show, where Schwärzel was at his disposal to describe the project. At the end, the tunnel will be approximately 5.2 km (3.2 miles) and is being built under the management of the Elbx Tunnel Hiring Consortium on behalf of the tennet transmission system operator.
Tbms turning heads to bauma
Herrenknecht also left a brand in the Munich Team Show with its new tunnel or tunnel extension system, which won an innovation award from Bauma organizers. In use since January 2024, technology has been deployed to renew and widen the railway tunnels while the line is still in operation. The Porr contractor has been operational with the Herrenknecht system in two sections of a line near Limburg, northwest of Frankfurt, with a recent advance in the 426-meter Fachinger tunnel and works in the 732-meter Craberger tunnel.
This type of system seems especially well located to relate to the recent German government push towards the funnel of funds to achieve its increasing infrastructure. There are about 800 railway tunnels around the country along with Austria and Switzerland who are over 100 years old who need to renew and repair to adapt more electrification, wider meters, best safety standards and more salon.
Schwärzel claims that the demands of configuration and challenges of the tunnel industry are evolving rapidly. Automation reaches the transport of segments, the installation of segments and continuous mining. “The variation in soil conditions is also increasingly complex. You have to deal with all types of ground conditions within a project. And then there are larger diameters, higher pressures of water, narrower curves and all these technical points.”
The competitive landscape also changes. Once again in Bauma, the two most daring names in the cavernous tunnel team showroom were found right on the front: Herrenknecht, on the one hand, and then to a stone launch, CEG, the China Railway Engineering Teams group, with its fleet fleet of boring machines. Boring Machines of CEG are at Sicily’s work for an ongoing railway project. China has not even manufactured tunnel boring machines for twenty years, but today he is a leading actor in the world tunnel market.
“From a technical point of view, they approach, this is obvious,” says Schwärzel. “They are always struggling to continue with different functions and improvements. The other topic, in general, is a price. Of course, we must always compete with lower prices. It is also our daily business.”
Strategies will continue to evolve accordingly. “We can only respond with a strategy. We have great strength in services and customers and we want to keep the steps ahead. Strong services, strong orders and what we can provide to customers. And what we can do with our technologies.”
