Wind Energy – Northseecluster
A ceremony held today at the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, marked the successful completion of the design, construction and integration phases of two offshore electrical substations.
These substations will become the operational heart of Phase A of the Nordseecluster offshore wind project, a collaboration between RWE (51%) and Norges Bank Investment Management (49%), which is currently under construction off the German coast.
Each topside is approximately 40 metres long and 22 metres high. The first topside weighs about 1,800 tonnes, while the second comes in at around 2,500 tonnes.
Both large-scale structures will depart from Saint-Nazaire by the end of the month. The units will be transported by barge to their installation site in the North Sea, around 50 kilometres north of the German island of Juist, on a voyage lasting around eight days. The foundations for the two substations have already been installed.
The Nordseecluster substations will collect electricity generated by the turbines, increase the voltage and transmit the power to the converter station of the grid operator. From this converter station the electricity flows to shore.
The Nordseecluster substations are also equipped to gather operational data from the wind farms and to enable remote monitoring and control from land.
