Prysmian Group has been awarded a major project worth in excess of € 250 million by the Dutch-German grid operator TenneT for the grid connection of offshore wind farms in Germany.
The project involves supply, installation and commissioning of a High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) 320 kV extruded submarine and land power bipole connection with a rating of 900 MW and associated fibre optic cable system, comprising of a 29 km land route and of a subsea route of 130 km. The power link will run from the land based converter station at substation Emden Ost in Lower Saxony to the converter platform BorWin gamma in the BorWin cluster, located approximately 120 km North of Germany.
Coordination of the ‘BorWin3’ project execution will be from Prysmian offices in Hamburg, using production from the Group’s centres of technological and manufacturing excellence in Pikkala (Finland) and Gron (France). Marine cable laying will be performed also using the newly upgraded Cable Enterprise DP 2 ship specifically geared to use at best her particular expertise in offshore wind farm connections in the North Sea to better serve the growing markets in Northern Europe and to provide highly complex installation solutions. Completion of the HVDC system installation is scheduled by October 2017.
Cables will be installed through environmentally significant natural areas both on land and at sea, including along the Ems estuary. This is the second grid connection project awarded by TenneT to follow this route (the route runs directly parallel to the DolWin3 project the Group was awarded last year) and highlights Prysmian’s ability to provide tailor-made installation solutions addressing and customer specifications and needs in conjunction with stringent environmental requirements.
The Group has developed a wide range of state-of-the-art products and technologies for the renewable energies sector, where Prysmian is acquiring a pre-eminent role in the development of HVDC cables for power transmission. This project is the 7th offshore project awarded by TenneT to Prysmian in recent years (6 DC projects, which also contained AC cable connections, and 1 AC only project).
Prysmian are providing complete cable systems for projects in all of the 4 clusters designated by TenneT in the North Sea. Following BorWin2, HelWin1, SylWin1, HelWin2 and DolWin3, the BorWin3 project – with its power rating of 900 MW – is again at the highest rated level for TenneT projects using extruded cables operating at the highest commercially available voltage level of ± 320 kV DC.
Press Release, April 15, 2014; Image: prysmian