DolWin kappa offshore substation sails away

Germany, Bavaria: TenneT will soon be reliably bringing even more green wind power from the German North Sea to land via the direct current connection DolWin6.

 


TenneT DolWin kappa sailout

Image source: Offshore magazine

Germany, Bavaria: TenneT will soon be reliably bringing even more green wind power from the German North Sea to land via the direct current connection DolWin6.

TenneT has now reached the next important milestone on its path to this objective: the sail-out of the 900-MW offshore platform DolWin kappa from the Dragados Offshore shipyard in Cádiz, Spain.

After only three years of construction, the platform is now on board the transport barge Iron Lady and on its way to the Dutch port of Rotterdam. There, it will be reloaded onto the world’s largest service vessel, the Pioneering Spirit, and then shipped to the installation site. The grid connection system is scheduled to be commissioned in 2023 and provide renewable energy to more than 1 million households.

“TenneT is taking its mission seriously and advancing the grid expansion in the North Sea step by step. With the successful sail-out of the offshore platform DolWin kappa, we have taken the next important leap. DolWin6 is already the 13th offshore grid connection in our German portfolio and will bolster Europe’s urgently needed energy independence beginning in 2023,” said TenneT COO Tim Meyerjürgens when the platform set sail.

Once at its final destination, DolWin kappa will be installed directly from the work boat. After the platform is commissioned in 2023, it will convert the alternating current generated by offshore wind farms into direct current, which will then be transmitted to Hilgenriedersiel on the mainland via an approximately 45-km-long subsea cable. From the landfall in Hilgenriedersiel, the electricity will be transmitted to Emden by a land cable, which will also be 45 km long.

On land TenneT has built the Emden/Ost converter station and transformer station to convert the direct current back into alternating current and then feed it into the high-voltage grid at the correct voltage level.

Source: Offshore magazine