Siemens Energy has deepened its participation in the Greater Gabbard wind farm – the world’s largest offshore wind farm – by winning the contract to connect the plant to the UK’s power grid.
The German company is supplying 140 wind turbines for the Greater Gabbard project, and has been awarded a EUR84 million contract by Fluor to provide the electrical components for the connection. The 500 MW project will be constructed 25 km off the coast of Suffolk, eastern England, and is scheduled to be completed by 2011.
As part of the contract, Siemens will supply two substation platforms to be positioned at sea as well as three 132 kV, three-phase high voltage subsea cables to transport the power to the feed-in point. It will also supply a reactive power compensation system based on static var compensator technology to support voltage quality at the feed-in point.
The two offshore substation platforms will boost voltage from 33 kV to 132 kV and will house the transformers, switchgear and protection and control equipment. Each platform will also have an auxiliary system for emergency power supply.
One platform will carry a transformer substation with three 180-MVA power transformers, and the other platform will carry a substation with two 90-MVA transformers. This separation between two platforms allows cable distances within the wind farm to be minimized, reducing power losses.
Greater Gabbard is owned by AIrtricity, the renewables arm of Scottish and Southern Energy.
