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Feature11 August 2020,
updated25 November 2020Siemens EnergyErlangen
With the commissioning of BorWin3, Siemens has handed over the fifth North Sea grid connection to its customer TenneT. After completion of successful test runs, the German/Dutch grid operator accepted the project. Siemens was responsible for the grid connection system including an onshore converter station. The grid connections HelWin1 and HelWin2, BorWin2, SylWin1, and BorWin3 – for which Siemens supplied all the technology for direct current transmission – are thus now in commercial operation and are transmitting power. Siemens was awarded the contract for BorWin3 in the spring of 2014. Being the fifth North Sea grid connection, it provides power to over a million German households. Siemens won the orders for the grid connections DolWin6 and BorWin5 in July 2017 and August 2020, respectively. They are scheduled to go into operation in 2023 and 2025. A total of about seven million households will be supplied with electricity generated from wind power via these seven links.
Press Pictures
The BorWin3 converter station in Emden at night: Here, the low-loss direct current that is transmitted to shore via a 160 km long cable is converted back into alternating current. The land-based station houses two HVDC transformers, each with a rated power of 666 MVA.
The offshore platform of the grid connection BorWin3 alone can transmit up to 900 megawatts (MW) of wind energy, enough to supply over one million German households. The platform was installed in October 2018 and officially handed over to TenneT in January 2020.
Siemens supplied the grid connection for transporting DC current to shore. BorWin3 is the fifth North Sea grid connection that Siemens has handed over to the German/Dutch transmission grid operator TenneT.
HelWin 1: Interior view of a converter station in Büttel in Schleswig-Holstein. Siemens used identical HVDC Plus Power Modules here, the same as will be used for the COBRA converter stations.
The reactor room at the HelWin1 land-based station in Büttel, Germany, during the construction phase. Here, large reactors filter out undesirable oscillations in the wind-generated electric power. In January 2015 Siemens handed over to its customer TenneT the HelWin1 grid connection, which can supply more than 700,000 households with offshore wind power. HelWin1 is one of five North Sea grid connections that the German-Dutch transmission grid operator has contracted Siemens to build. On a large platform erected at sea off the coast of the German island of Helgoland, wind power generated offshore is transformed into low-loss direct current for transmission to land where it is converted back to conventional alternating current.
The converter room of HelWin1 land-based station in Büttel. Here, the direct current transported to shore is transformed back into alternating current. In January 2015 Siemens handed over to its customer TenneT the HelWin1 grid connection, which can supply more than 700,000 households with offshore wind power. HelWin1 is one of five North Sea grid connections that the German-Dutch transmission grid operator has contracted Siemens to build. On a large platform erected at sea off the coast of the German island of Helgoland, wind power generated offshore is transformed into low-loss direct current for transmission to land where it is converted back to conventional alternating current.
The converter room of HelWin1 land-based station in Büttel. Here, the direct current transported to shore is transformed back into alternating current. In January 2015 Siemens handed over to its customer TenneT the HelWin1 grid connection, which can supply more than 700,000 households with offshore wind power. HelWin1 is one of five North Sea grid connections that the German-Dutch transmission grid operator has contracted Siemens to build. On a large platform erected at sea off the coast of the German island of Helgoland, wind power generated offshore is transformed into low-loss direct current for transmission to land where it is converted back to conventional alternating current.
Electricity from the three wind farms Butendiek, DanTysk and Sandbank is transmitted to the mainland via the SylWin1 grid connection. Siemens installed the grid connection in high-efficiency DC technology for network operator TenneT. The combined total of 232 Siemens wind turbines linked to the grid connection will provide enough electricity to supply more than one million households in the future. From the platform, there are wind turbines in view as far as the eye can see.
Infographic
HVDC technology from Siemens Energy connects around 7 million households with offshore energy
Together with its partners, Siemens Energy has already built and installed five offshore HVDC connections in the German North Sea for TenneT: HelWin1 (576 MW) and HelWin2 (690 MW) off the island of Helgoland; BorWin2 (800 MW) and BorWin3 (900 MW) off Borkum; and SylWin1 (864 MW) off the island of Sylt. The DolWin6 (900 MW) and BorWin5 (900 MW) projects are currently being implemented. All in all, the seven connections have a total transmission capacity of around 5.6 gigawatts (GW), which is calculated to supply around seven million German households with wind power.
Videos
Mid-November 2020 two transformers with a transport weight of 416 tons each have left the Siemens Energy transformer factory in Nuremberg in Germany and started their journey to an high-voltage direct current onshore station in Emden in the north of Germany. The transformer are a crucial part of the Dolwin6 offshore grid connection project undertaken by Siemens Energy with the German-Dutch network operator TenneT. The video shows the transport to Nuremberg harbour.