Siemens has installed a fourth offshore platform in the North Sea to help transmit offshore wind power to German households

Siemens has installed a fourth offshore platform in the North Sea to help transmit offshore wind power to German households. The platform for the SylWin1 DC link is the most powerful of the four offshore wind power grid connections contracted to Siemens by the German-Dutch transmission grid operator TenneT between 2010 and 2011.

Siemens had also installed the third platform at sea for the HelWin2 grid connection a few days prior to the SylWin1 platform. In all Siemens is implementing five North Sea grid connection projects for TenneT.

The first four grid connections, whose platforms have now been installed at sea, are scheduled to take up commercial operation successively between the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015. The fifth grid connection, which was contracted earlier this year, should go online in 2019.

 

The newly installed SylWin1 platform has a capacity of 864 MW and is located 70 km to the west of the island Sylt, after which the project was named. It will concentrate the wind power produced by the three North Sea wind farms Dan Tysk, Butendiek and Sandbank and transmit the electricity to land as direct current. Weighing 25,000 tonnes, the platform is the largest converter platform installed to date worldwide.