Sockets at sea
Description
'Sockets at sea'
Water and fire you might say, but nothing could be further from the truth. A technical tour de force.
Every offshore park in the Dutch sea now has its own cable to the mainland. The existing Egmond aan Zee and Princess Amalia wind farms are connected to the substation in Velsen and the new Gemini and Luchterduinen wind farms will be connected to the Eemshaven and Sassenheim substations respectively.
Now that it has been established that the Netherlands will develop more than 4 GW of additional offshore wind energy, the obvious way to achieve the connection to the national transmission grid is to combine connections and cluster them via so-called 'sockets at sea'. 'With an integrated approach, a lot of gains can be made,' says grid operator TenneT. 'By grid optimisation alone, some 15% can be saved on the costs of electrical infrastructure.'
Back in 2007, TenneT awarded ABB an order to supply an offshore HVDC socket to connect a 400 MW wind farm. In July 2010, TenneT awarded another order for another 'socket at sea' to connect three large offshore wind farms.
Technical highlights: DolWin 1 and DolWin 2 are project names for two of the now multiple offshore grid connections TenneT is building. Such connections require imposing offshore structures. In these offshore constructions the 'sockets at sea' alternating current coming from wind farms in the North Sea is converted into direct current. This direct current is then transported via a long submarine high-voltage direct current cable and high-voltage direct current land cable to a transformer station on land. Here, the direct current is converted back into alternating current so that the electricity can be connected to the national grid. These offshore grid connections have connection lengths of up to 200 km and capacities of up to 900 MW.
Not only with HVDC but also with HVAC, ABB has realised, among other things, the connection of the Princess Amalia Wind Farm.
We invite you to hear from ABB specialists to explain the technology and the tremendous challenges of such projects
18.30 - 19.00 Walk-in with cup of soup and roll.
19.00 - 19:05 Welcome.
19.05 - 20.05 Lecture "Sockets at sea, challenges in progress", by Leo Pols, market manager Benelux ABB.
20.05 - 20.15 Pause.
20.15 - 21.15 Continuation of lecture.
21.15 - 21.30 Closing with drinks.
21.30 End.
Speaker(s)
Leo Pols, market manager Benelux ABB
Many electrical engineers know the company ABB and often have fond memories of the original former companies being the Swedish company Asea and the Swiss company Brown, Boveri. Both companies merged in 1988 to form Asea Brown Boveri. As ABB, the company grew into a very leading and successful business with their headquarters in Switzerland. With 150,000 employees in 100 countries and an annual turnover of 40 billion euros, ABB is one of the world's largest companies in energy and automation technology.
ABB is closely involved in the greening and sustainability of the energy supply in the Netherlands but also in the rest of the world. In particular, in efficiently bringing electrical energy generated by offshore wind power ashore. The company is closely involved in projects of Tennet, which is responsible for efficient transmission of energy generated by several offshore wind farms, particularly in Germany. A huge 'HVDC socket' was recently installed at sea for this purpose.
Location
Domstad course and conference centre
Koningsbergerstraat 9, 3531 AJ Utrecht
Organiser
Electrical Engineering
Name and contact details for information
ing. Pim Klaver at the e-mail address below