ABB wins offshore wind energy connection project in German North Sea

ABB, the leading power and automation technology group, has won a significant order from the Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT to supply an AC (alternating current) power transmission link connecting Sandbank, an offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, to the HVDC (high-voltage direct current) converter station SylWin alpha.

The link will have the capacity to transmit 288 megawatt (MW) of clean wind power enough to supply energy to around 300,000 German households. Once the connection is commissioned the offshore wind farm will be able to save 1,500, 000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year by replacing fossil fueled generation.

“Germany’s focus on renewable energy, the so-called ‘Energiewende’, together with the growing interest in using wind as an energy source in Europe provides significant opportunities for us,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “Integrating renewable wind energy efficiently and reliably helps deliver clean and affordable electricity to consumers in an environmentally sustainable way.”

“ABB has a wide range of technologies to enable this integration and has built up significant experience in this sector. We are delighted to partner TenneT once again for this project,” said Brice Koch, Head of ABB’s Power Systems division.
The connection will link the AC platform of the Sandbank offshore wind farm to the HVDC converter platform of SylWin alpha. The Sandbank wind farm is situated around 90 kilometers off the island of Sylt.

The connection will deploy two 3-core 155 kilovolt (kV) AC submarine cables, each 36 km long. ABB has already successfully commissioned nine AC cable projects worldwide for offshore wind connections and others are under execution.

For this project ABB will have turnkey responsibility for the design, engineering, supply and installation of the subsea cable system including two shunt reactors on the AC platform. The project is scheduled for completion in 2015.

Sandbank is the fifth offshore wind connection project in Germany awarded to ABB by TenneT. ABB is presently executing the Nordergründe AC cable link connecting an offshore wind farm directly to an onshore substation.

The other three projects are offshore wind connections based on HVDC Light technology of which BorWin1 has already been commissioned and DolWin1 and DolWin2 are under construction.

As one of the world’s leading high-voltage cable manufacturers ABB has extensive knowledge and experience across a range of applications including offshore wind farm connections, powering oil and gas platforms from shore, and underground or subsea interconnectors. The company recently announced investments of about $500 million in the US and Sweden, respectively, to increase production capacity of land and subsea cables.