Alstom Grid has successfully delivered the offshore substation platform for the Trianel wind farm Borkum in the German North Sea, and handed it over to Trianel Windkraftwerk Borkum GmbH & Co. KG. The offshore installation of the substation, manufactured in Bremerhaven, northern Germany, was completed on 14. April.

Borkum is a 56 square-kilometre wind farm, located around 45 kilometres north of the Borkum coast. The wind farm consists of 80 wind turbines with a total power of 400 MW to be installed at water depths of 25 to 35 metres in two expansion stages. After the completion of the first expansion stage with a performance of 200 MW, it will generate up to 800 million KW hours (KWh) of energy a year; enough to supply almost 200,000 households with power.

Alstom’s offshore substation platform connects the turbines to the onshore power grid at the connection point. The full scope of the contract includes a F351 gas-insulated substation and two 225 MVAr transformers for the platform. Alstom’s Dresden site (Saxony) was in charge of project management, while teams at Mönchengladbach (North Rhine-Westphalia) delivered the transformers. WeserWind Offshore Construction GmbH in Bremerhaven produced the steel structure for the platform.

Wolfgang Voss, Member of the Board for ALSTOM Deutschland AG said, “Alstom is proud to make another important contribution to implementing the energy turnaround with our project teams in Germany. In addition to this successful installation at Borkum wind park, the installation of the Global Tech 1 offshore substation is imminent and the offshore substation platforms for the Baltic 2 and Meerwind wind farms are currently available in the form of a steel bodyshell. This is impressive evidence of our leading position in this field.”

Press Release, April 22, 2013