Zurich, Switzerland: ABB announced August 2 that it has won an order worth around $1 billion from the Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT to supply a power link connecting offshore North Sea wind farms to the German mainland grid.
ABB says the project, the largest power transmission order in its history, will deploy the world’s largest offshore high-voltage direct current system with a rating of over 900 MW, keeping electrical losses to less than 1%per converter station. The completed link will be capable of supplying over 1.5 million households with wind-generated electricity.
ABB will design, engineer, supply and install the offshore platform, the offshore and onshore converter stations and the land and sea cable systems. ABB’s “innovative and environmentally friendly” HVDC Light transmission technology will transport power from the 400 MW Gode Wind II and other wind farms to an offshore HVDC converter station, which will transmit the electricity to the onshore HVDC station at Dörpen on the German coast via 135 kilometers of underwater and underground cables. A converter station there will feed electricity into the mainland grid.
“Offshore wind power is emerging as a major source of large-scale renewable energy in Europe to help meet emission targets and lower environmental impact,” said Peter Leupp, head of ABB’s Power Systems division.
ABB claims its HVDC Light transmission technology offers environmental benefits such as neutral electromagnetic fields and compact converter stations. The 320-kV cable capacity in this latest system is the highest level used for HVDC transmission with extruded cables.
This is the third offshore wind connection order for ABB in Germany, following the 800 MW Dolwin1 link awarded last year and previously the BorWin1 project. The line is scheduled to be operational in 2015. Germany’s installed wind power capacity of over 27 gigawatts presently meets about eight percent of its electricity requirements. Plans are to double that by 2020.