Overhead Transmission

Subsea AC Cable System to Connect Butendiek Offshore Wind Farm to Tennet’s SylWin Alpha HVDC Converter Platform

Nov. 14, 2014

Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT has awarded ABB an order to design, engineer, supply and install an alternating-current power transmission cable system.

Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT has awarded ABB an order to design, engineer, supply and install an alternating-current (AC) power transmission cable system that will connect Butendiek, an offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, to the high-voltage direct-current (HVDC) converter platform SylWin alpha.

The cable will link the AC platform of the Butendiek offshore wind farm to the HVDC converter platform SylWin alpha. The Butendiek wind farm is situated around 30 km off the island of Sylt. The cable system to be supplied is a three-core 155-kV AC submarine cable, approximately 38 km long. It is scheduled to be installed and commissioned in 2015. The high-voltage cable originally destined for this project was lost in an incident in the Mediterranean Sea in July, and ABB was asked to step in and help to support the project schedule.

Tdworld Com Sites Tdworld com Files Uploads 2014 11 Abb Power Cables Master 1 300

The cable system will have a capacity to transmit 144 MW of wind power. The use of clean, renewable wind energy as an alternate source is equivalent to the abatement of almost 750,000 tons of CO₂ emissions per year that could have resulted from fossil-fueled generation.

“Germany is among the world’s leading proponents of renewable energy and continues to push for lowering environmental impact”, said Claudio Facchin, head of ABB’s Power Systems business. “We have a vast array of technologies and considerable experience in this domain and are pleased to support TenneT with this fast track project.

ABB has successfully commissioned more than 10 AC cable projects around the world for offshore wind projects and others are under execution. Butendiek is the sixth offshore wind connection project in Germany awarded to ABB by TenneT. ABB is presently executing the Sandbank AC cable link, which also connects an offshore wind farm to the SylWin alpha HVDC converter platform.