Fatma Zghal: 'Amazing to get to design the future offshore grid'

As a little girl in Tunisia, she would often take apart some of her parents’ devices, but they would never get angry at her when she wasn’t able to put them back together again.

That same curiosity of how things work, is something that still drives her today. “When I moved to Germany for my studies , I was also very curious about the people and the culture. That same trait has served me well at TenneT. I always want to know more about the company, the departments and how the energy sector keeps developing.” 


Fatma studied electrical engineering at the university of Karlsruhe (KIT) in Germany and decided to specialize in power systems and energy economics during her master's studies.

During her first assignment in the ITP, Fatma worked at Asset Management Netherlands. Much to her joy, there was more than enough technical challenges for her to solve. There, she worked closely with the grid development team to create two calculation tools that will be used for grid studies.

During her second assignment, she worked at Asset Management Offshore and was involved in a wind energy project in The Netherlands.
“It’s amazing to get to design the future offshore grid. There are so many factors to consider, a cable stays a cable off- or onshore, but there is immediately an enormous difference once that cable needs to be buried under water or if it needs to be placed under ground on land. There are so many things that come into play and there are so many different interests. This is such an exciting work area. I would like to visit one of these offshore sites. That is on my bucket list.”

Fatma can describe as no other what it is like to work in different countries and therefore what it is like to work with different cultures. “First, I studied in Germany and now I work in The Netherlands. The biggest difference is in how people behave socially. The Dutch are generally easier to approach, more open. During one of my development sessions with the other trainees, the trainer described it as follows: The Dutch are just like a peach, the Germans are like a coconut. I find that to be a fitting analogy.”

From the 1st of September 2018, Fatma works as a technologist at Asset Management Offshore.
"It’s amazing to get to design the future offshore grid"

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