The first great milestone in the construction of the offshore wind farm Borkum Riffgrund 1 is about to be fulfilled: The shipping of the offshore substation.
With a total capacity of 3,500 tonnes and a total height of 65 metres, it is in terms of logistics a tremendous achievement to load the topside and the jacket construction of the substation onto the barge. In the Danish town Aalborg, the weather conditions are good and the giant moves slowly forward on a load-out platform designed for heavy loads in order to be shipped to the construction site located approximately 54km off the East Frisian North See coast and installed on the seabed.
Everything goes according to plan, and both components are placed on the barge called ‘Boa Barge 36’. Then, around 30 hours later, depending on the weather conditions, the 465m2 large substation will arrive at the construction site. In the first week of August, the installation of the two components will begin: the eight-legged steel jacket construction will be installed at almost 30 metres water depths.
Subsequently, the topside, which is the beating heart of any offshore wind farm, will be installed. When in operation, the produced electricity from the 77 wind turbines will be led to the topside and here transformed into the required 155kV. The 155kV electricity will then be led through the so-called converter station of the transmission system operator, where it will be transformed again and transported to shore.
[mappress]
Press release, August 5, 2013; Image: DONG Energy