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Siemens receives major order for
BorWin3 North Sea grid connection from TenneT
•
Consortium leader Siemens to supply HVDC transmission technology
•
Consortium partner Petrofac responsible for construction and installation
of platform
• 900 megawatt (MW) BorWin3 grid connection to supply
nearly one million German households with electricity from wind energy
• Completion planned for 2019
Siemens receives an order from TenneT for an offshore wind farm grid
connection in the North Sea. In a consortium with Petrofac Siemens will
supply the complete technology for efficient direct-current transmission
for the BorWin3 grid connection as the consortium leader. The consortium
partner Petrofac, with over 30 years of experience as a leading EPC
contractor to the international oil and gas industry, will be responsible
for the construction and offshore installation of the project's platform.
Supply and laying of the cables was tendered separately by TenneT and is
therefore not part of the consortium's scope of supply.
The BorWin3
grid connection, with a transmission capacity of 900 megawatts (MW), is
the fifth order that Siemens has received from the German-Dutch
transmission grid operator TenneT for connection of offshore wind farms in
the North Sea. "BorWin3 will supply nearly one million German households
with clean electricity from wind power. We can now fully apply our broad
experience gained in our first four pioneer projects in the North Sea to
this project", declared Karlheinz Springer, CEO of the Power Transmission
Division of the Siemens Energy Sector. Commencement of commercial
operation of Borwin3 is scheduled for 2019.
The scope of supply
includes the entire high-voltage equipment of the grid access system as
well as the complete onland station. Both converters, which are meant to
turn the alternating current into the direct current one and then back
again, constitute an essential part of the installation. In addition to
this, Siemens supplies two power transformers per station at a rating of
about 670 MVA as well as the entire air and gas insulated high-voltage
switchgear equipment. Furthermore, Siemens is in charge of the overall
construction works of the onland station. The high-voltage direct current
(HVDC) converter modules are going to be designed, manufactured and tested
at the Siemens converter factory in the city of Nuremberg. The technology
applied here is well-proven and it is already successfully used in four
offshore projects by Siemens. The power transformers are also manufactured
by Siemens at the factory in Nuremberg.
The converter technology
applied by Siemens, which is referred to as the HVDC Plus, stands for a
voltage-sourced converter constructed on the basis of the Modular
Multilevel Converter concept (VSC MMC). Pioneering the VSC MMC technology,
Siemens boasts the technological leadership in this field. Unlike the
conventional HVDC variant used only in the grids with a sufficient level
of short-circuit power, the installations furnished with the HVDC Plus
provide the black-start capability of the islanded grids, which is the
basic requirement when operating an offshore network. The modular VSC
technology helps reduce the complexity and subsequently the size of
installations - which is a mandatory requirement especially when used on
offshore platforms. Moreover, the HVDC Plus ensures a virtually ideal
sinus-shaped alternating current voltage and a smooth voltage in the
direct current voltage circuit. This makes the use of harmonic filters
superfluous.
This 160 kilometers (km) long grid connection will
link several wind farms to the mainland. The 155 kilovolt (kV) alternating
current supplied by the wind power plants will be transformed into 320 kV
direct current on the BorWin3 offshore platform. A basic principle behind
power transmission is: The higher the voltage, the more energy that can be
transmitted via a cable and the less the losses. Normally, direct current
transmission is implemented in cable links of more than 80 km, as this is
usually more economical, and also because transmission of alternating
current over such distances and at these high power levels would result in
a major portion of the energy being lost without any means of
compensation. The BorWin3 link will transport electrical energy via cable
over 130 km at sea and a further 30 km on land to the grid feed-in point
in Emden. The direct current will then be converted back into alternating
current for further transmission and distribution. Thanks to the efficient
Siemens HVDC (high-voltage direct current) technology, transmission losses
over the link, excluding cable losses, are less than three percent.
The platform will be designed as a parent platform, equipped with a
helipad and crews' quarters. Siemens will essentially be supplying the
HVDC technology for the platform and will be responsible for the
construction of the complete HVDC converter station on land. In all,
Siemens is now implementing five North Sea grid connection projects for
TenneT. Projects to date are: HelWin1 (576 MW) and HelWin2 (690 MW) off of
Helgoland, BorWin2 (800 MW) off of Borkum and SylWin1 (864 MW) off of
Sylt. Those grid connections are well advanced and are scheduled to take
up operation successively between 2014 and 2015.
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HVDC solutions and the associated service are part of the Siemens
environmental portfolio. Around 43 percent of the company's revenues are
provided by green products and solutions. That makes Siemens one of the
world’s leading providers of eco-friendly technology.
Source:
Sabrina Martin, Siemens AG
www.siemens.com
15.04.2014
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