Scotland: Siemens to supply wind turbines and grid connection for Beatrice offshore project

Siemens has received a further order for an offshore wind power plant from Scotland. The company is to supply, install and commission 84 wind turbines, each with a 154-meter rotor diameter designed to generate 7 megawatts (MW) of power, for the "Beatrice" project. Furthermore the scope of supply comprises the offshore grid connection to the mainland in consortium with Nexans who will supply the connecting export cables. Siemens will deliver the onshore and offshore substations consisting of two offshore transformer modules (OTM) which are smaller in weight and size and thus saving costs. The customer, Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd. (BOWL), is a partnership formed between SSE (40 percent), Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (35 percent) and SDIC Power (25 percent). The offshore wind power plant's capacity of 588 MW will be sufficient to supply more than 400,000 UK households with ecofriendly electricity. Siemens will additionally be responsible for servicing the wind farm over a period of 15 years.

"This is a significant order for our new 7-megawatt-class wind turbine", stated Michael Hannibal, CEO of the Offshore Market Unit of the Siemens Wind Power and Renewables Division. "We are looking forward to working with our customer on this large offshore wind power project off the Scottish coast."

"We are proud to announce the first reference for our newly developed Offshore Transformer Module together with our customer", stated Mirko Düsel, CEO Transmission Solutions Business Unit at Siemens. "The application of light weight distributed substations is an important lever for reaching Siemens' goal of reducing the costs of wind power generated offshore to below 10 euro cts/kWh by 2020."

The Beatrice offshore wind farm will be located around 14 kilometers off the Scottish coast. The SWT-7.0-154 wind turbines will be erected on jacket foundations in ocean depths between 35 and 56 meters. Siemens plans to produce the corresponding wind turbine blades for Beatrice at its Hull facility. Installation of the wind turbines is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2018. Following commissioning of the plant in 2019, Siemens will also be responsible for service and maintenance for the wind turbines within the framework of a long-term service contract extending over a period of 15 years. The contract also covers remote monitoring and diagnostics for the wind turbines so as to ensure their long-term availability and performance. The logistics concept for this plant also includes the use of a helicopter.

"We are pleased to be working side-by-side with the BOWL partnership over the next 15 years to provide clean safe reliable power to the citizens of the UK," added Mark Albenze, CEO Power Generation Services Wind Power and Renewables Business Unit at Siemens. "We are excited about this project and are looking forward to providing our advanced offshore logistics."

For the grid access solution, Siemens will deliver two offshore transformer modules , which are one third smaller in size and weight compared to a conventional alternating-current (AC) platform. Siemens' partner in delivering the offshore grid connection, Nexans, will be responsible for design, supply and installation of the export cable, both offshore and onshore. The OTM's will be linked together to provide the required transmission capacity. Focusing on the core electrical equipment and removing a number of optional ancillary systems made this space and weight reduction possible, which also results in a reduced maintenance regime. The grid access solution will be project managed and engineered from the Siemens Energy Management Renewable Energy Engineering Centre in Manchester, UK.

With its nearly 2,100 installed wind turbines offshore and their total capacity of more than seven gigawatts, Siemens is the leading provider of offshore wind turbines worldwide. The company also has long-term service contracts for a total capacity of 6.7 gigawatts in the offshore wind power business. Furthermore Siemens has commissioned offshore grid connections with a total capacity of more than six gigawatts making it the leading provider of offshore grid access for both AC and DC technology.