This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
FEATURE SPONSOR STOKE & STAFFORDSHIRE FOCUS A CHANGING INDUSTRY


SUBSTATIONS & CONNECTIONS IN STAFFORD


The last place that you want to build an electrical substation is in the middle of the North Sea. The waves, the winds and the salt are all perfectly designed to cause huge problems to anyone who wants to bring the electricity from offshore wind farms to shore, but that is precisely what Alstom teams in Stafford contend with when they build bespoke substations for customers that have to survive some of the harshest conditions imaginable.


The Alstom team working for the company’s Grid division in Stafford is probably located just as far from the coast as its possible to be but, through experience gained at the Barrow, Ormonde, Robin Rigg and Sheringham Shoal wind farms, they are at the very forefront of offshore substation design and manufacture, together with connection and maintenance.


And the industry has changed markedly since Alstom built its first offshore substation for the 90 MW Barrow project in 2006.


“What we’ve seen is a shift from the relatively straightforward substation we built for Barrow, which sits on a monopile foundation, to much larger and more complicated fabrications that are more like oil rigs,” said Kevin Marriott, Regional Commercial VP for North West Europe.


“As we move on to even bigger offshore wind farms, even further offshore then we know we’ll be designing a whole new range of options for customers, each bespoke to their needs.”


HVDC (HIGH VOLTAGE DIRECT CURRENT) TECHNOLOGY


Going further offshore also opens up the second string to Alstom’s Stafford bow with future North Sea wind farms being able to utilise HVDC technology. The technology, which has been developed by the company for 60 years, allows minimal transmission losses as the electricity travels over long distances, which is obviously perfect for a wind farm that is potentially 100 miles off shore.


DOLWIN 3


The HVDC team at Stafford is already working on the DolWin 3 offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, where converter stations will be built both onshore and offshore to bring power from a wind farm 83 km offshore and through a cable that goes a further 79 km onshore. By using HVDC technology, the potential losses of using a traditional AC system will be minimised, so making the whole project more economic for the developers, TenneT.


ROUND 3 PROJECTS


With future Round 3 projects further off the UK coastline, it is highly likely that HVDC technology will be coming to UK waters and shorelines sooner rather than later – with the company’s own 6 MW Haliade offshore wind turbines – and the team at Stafford will be at the forefront of providing the necessary equipment to make such projects a reality.


Alstom


www.windenergynetwork.co.uk


61


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116