RWE Innogy has completed installation of the offshore substation at its 295MW Nordsee Ost wind farm in the German North Sea.
It took the 1800-tonne platform three days to reach the project site some 30km north of the island of Heligoland after it left the Bladt Industries facility in Aalborg, Demark. A floating crane placed the unit on its foundation on Saturday (pictured).
“The substation was developed and built within a 16-month time frame by our contractor Bladt Industries, together with the Danish subcontractors Semco and ISC,†said RWE project manager Matthias Esken.
“We are now going to connect the substation with the previously installed inter-array cables and the TenneT export cables, which remain to be installed.â€
RWE project director for Nordsee Ost Marcel Sunier added: “The heart of the wind farm has now been installed with the transformer substation. As soon as access to the grid has been provided we will start the commissioning.â€
The 48-turbine Nordsee Ost is expected to be complete by year-end with the testing phase to be finished in spring 2015.
