UK - Siemens to connect world’s largest wind farm to the grid

Siemens Energy has won a major contract from Fluor Ltd. to connect Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm to the British power grid. The volume of the order for the grid connection is approximately EUR84 million. With a capacity of 500 megawatts (MW), the Greater Gabbard project will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Siemens will also supply 140 wind turbines for this project, which will be constructed 25 km off the coast of Suffolk in the UK. The wind farm will be commissioned in two phases, with the entire construction scheduled to be completed in 2011. The Greater Gabbard project is owned by Airtricity, the renewables arm of Scottish and Southern Energy. The project was jointly developed by Airtricity and Fluor, where Fluor is the balance of plant contractor.

“Siemens Energy has a unique wind power portfolio. Not only do we manufacture and supply high-tech wind turbines, we also efficiently connect wind farms to the grid. This includes carrying out the necessary preliminary network studies,” said Udo Niehage, CEO of the Power Transmission Division of the Siemens Energy Sector. As part of the grid connection for the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm, Siemens is constructing two substation platforms to be positioned at sea. The substation platforms concentrate the energy generated by the wind farms. Subsea cables will transport the power to the feed-in point, which will be located at the coast. The energy efficient connection of offshore wind farms to the electrical power grid is an important feature of Siemens’ environmental portfolio. In 2007, revenue from the products and solutions of Siemens’ environmental portfolio was nearly EUR17 billion. The environmental portfolio is growing 10 percent annually; the revenue target for 2011 is EUR25 billion.

The Siemens Energy Sector is the world’s leading supplier of a complete spectrum of products, services and solutions for the generation, transmission and distribution of power and for the extraction, conversion and transport of oil and gas. In fiscal 2007 (ended September 30, based on IFRS), the Energy Sector had revenues of approximately EUR20 billion and received new orders totaling around EUR28 billion and posted a profit of EUR1.8 billion. The Energy Sector had a work force of 73,500 at the beginning of fiscal 2008. Further information is available at: www.siemens.com/energy.