Transmission & distribution |
Making 2 GW the new standard for HVDC offshore wind connections
Significant new milestones have been achieved by TenneT and Amprion in developing standardised 2 GW HVDC connections for offshore wind
Amprion Offshore GmbH has awarded Siemens Energy and Dragados Offshore HVDC converter station contracts for the BalWin 1 and 2 (formerly called LanWin 1 and LanWin3) HVDC offshore grid connection systems.* They will have a capacity of 2 GW, and the contract is described by Siemens Energy as the “world’s first order for a 2 GW grid connection at sea.” The new 2 GW standard represents a doubling of capacity in comparison to the previous de facto 900 MW HVDC standard typically seen in offshore wind connections and almost triple the 700 MW typical of AC offshore wind connections.
Siemens Energy and Dragados will build two converters offshore and two onshore, with commissioning two and three years earlier, respectively, than originally planned. Due to the acceleration measures planned by the German government, Amprion Offshore invited tenders for the construction of the converters earlier than planned, in the autumn of 2022. The plans provide for BalWin 1 to go into operation as early as 2029, instead of 2031, and for BalWin 2 as early as 2030 instead of 2033. With only three months to tender and award the contract, Amprion says it was “able to complete the process in record time”, noting that “the experience from previous contracting processes has been an important factor.”
The contract is worth a total of more than €4 billion including maintenance for ten years and
represents the largest offshore grid connection order in Siemens Energy’s history, the company says.
“We are working at high pressure to meet the accelerated scenarios of the German government to install 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030. That is why we are very pleased to have… two partners in Siemens Energy and Dragados Offshore who can implement our converters quickly and reliably,” said Peter Barth, joint managing director of Amprion Offshore GmbH. Last summer, Amprion had already commissioned the Spanish–German consortium to build the converters for DolWin 4 and BorWin 4. The companies have promised an accelerated start-up for BorWin 4, with operation brought forward by one year. Amprion says it is particularly pleased that an even greater acceleration has now been promised for BalWin 1 and 2: “The market is currently extremely tense. In particular, the required shipyards for converter platforms are deficient in Germany and Europe. That is why two or three years of acceleration are an enormous challenge,” said Dr Carsten Lehmköster, who is managing director of Amprion Offshore GmbH together with Barth. The BalWin 1 and 2 connection systems will connect offshore wind farms in the North Sea to the German onshore transmission grid, at Wehrendorf (Lower Saxony) and Westerkappeln (North Rhine-Westphalia). They will be installed in
Above: Visualisation of Amprion 2 GW HVDC offshore wind converter platform
parallel to one another for the most part on land and at sea.
BalWin 1 and 2 will have a route length of nearly 400 km, with around 170 km subsea. The land sections of both BalWin 1 and 2 will be underground DC cables.
TenneT’s 2 GW strategy Dutch–German TSO, TenneT is also aiming for a programme of 2 GW HVDC offshore wind connections, and has recently entered into an “early works agreement” with its partners Hitachi Energy and Petrofac.
“The early works agreement with Hitachi Energy and Petrofac is a very important milestone in the execution of our 2GW strategy”, said Marco Kuijpers, director, offshore at TenneT. With this first agreement we are reserving production capacity for platforms and HVDC equipment and initiating the detailed engineering process to secure the time schedule for two [Dutch] 2 GW projects, IJmuiden Ver Alpha (2029) and Nederwiek 1 (2030). We expect to award the full framework contracts for the HVDC platform scope of all the 2030 Road Map projects in the first quarter of 2023, along with the other envisaged partners.”
Visualisation of Amprion 2 GW DC to AC land converter station for offshore wind connection Source: Amprion GmbH
TenneT has also named land station civil contractors for the Dutch 2 GW projects. Dura Vermeer, BAM Infra Nederland and Visser & Smit Bouw have entered into a “framework agreement”, having been selected “on the basis of quality, safety and sustainability”, said TenneT.
* LanWin stands for LangeoogWind, BalWin for BaltrumWind.
24 | March 2023|
www.modernpowersystems.com
Source: Amprion GmbH
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