Offshore construction at the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm has completed its next significant milestone with the successful installation of the project’s offshore substation on site in the North Sea.
The vessel Stanislav Yudin has safely lifted the offshore substation into position, and work is now underway to pull in and connect the pre-laid export cable to the substation platform.
Westermost Rough will consist of 35 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 210MW, and is due to be fully completed in 2015. Monopile foundation installation was completed in late May, with turbine installation due to begin in late summer.
The offshore substation was fabricated in STX France’s St Nazaire shipyard, making use of facilities and techniques well proven for building cruise ships. The substation consists of two major sections – the jacket foundation which is fixed to the sea-bed, and the topside which sits on the jacket foundation and houses the electrical equipment and necessary support systems.
The contract to fabricate the substation was awarded in late November 2012. Installation contractor Seaway Heavy Lifting performed the installation operation.
Duncan Clark, Programme Director for Westermost Rough at DONG Energy said: “It has been a very busy and exciting time for the everyone involved in the project with the successful installation of the export cable, all the monopile foundations and the offshore substation platform. This continues now with our work alongside National Grid to energise the onshore electrical systems, and with Technip to install the array cables. These are very complex operations and major engineering achievements so the whole project team is delighted that we have safely completed these major milestones along the road to having the wind farm fully up and running in 2015.”
The substation is positioned within the 35km² site and will be linked to the 35 6MW turbines via a series of inter-array cables. At the offshore substation, the voltage from the turbines is increased and the export cable will then take the electricity ashore where the wind farm is connected to the UK national grid at Salt End, near Hull.
Westermost Rough Offshore Wind Farm is jointly owned by DONG Energy, Marubeni Corporation and the UK Green Investment Bank. The project marks the first time that the Siemens 6MW turbine will be used on a commercial scale anywhere in the world.