Germany - Power to be supplied by Transpower’s offshore wind farm

A new type of converter station for wind power that enables electricity to travel over long distances is set to be installed near the site of an offshore wind farm in the North Sea in the next few days. On a barge in the Dutch harbour of Vlissingen, waiting to be pulled out to sea, the 60 metre-high base towered over workers soldering, hammering and carrying equipment into the 3,500 tonne electricity converter station it will support.

The 300m ($413.6m) project is operated by Transpower, a division of German utility. It will convert alternating current (AC) from the wind farm into direct current (DC) so it can travel 200km to Germany.

Connecting to the BARD Offshore 1 wind farm, the platform will be able to convert up to 400MW of wind energy, enough to power a small town. It could also be extended in future and connected to another converter station.

“In the summer we’ll be laying a cable in the North Sea and connecting it and then we’ll energise the platform,” said Martin Schmelz, a commercial director on the project, adding that transmission was scheduled to start in September.

Inside the station, an AC and DC hall are separated by a converter room to change the AC from the wind farm into the DC form for travelling along the cable to the shore.

Schmelz said this type of converter station made it possible to build offshore wind farms further away from the coast as it converted the energy into high voltage DC electricity which can travel over a longer distance.

Advantages of building offshore wind farms further out to sea include keeping them out of sight and hearing range and increasing their potential for expansion. Also, wind speeds are higher out at sea which means more power is generated.

But access, costs and legal questions around these projects can be problematic as the industry is still young and lacking long-term experiences in these areas.

For more information please contact Trevor Sievert at ts@windfair.net