ABB Wins Contract To Connect World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm

ABB Wins Contract To Connect World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm

SSE Renewables of the UK and Equinor of Norway has selected ABB for the supply of the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) Light® converter systems that will connect the world’s largest offshore wind farms in the Dogger Bank region of the North Sea to the UK transmission network.

The HVDC technology will be used for the first time in the offshore wind market of UK. The supply technology by ABB will have minimum impact in the environment because of the most compact station design that will be combined with the lowest energy losses in the power industry.

The HVDC Light® converter systems will be supplied by ABB and the two HVDC offshore converter platforms will be by Aibel. The partnership of ABB and Aibel on the design, engineering and optimization of offshore wind connections was announced in 2016.

“Winning the contracts from SSE Renewables and Equinor for the landmark Dogger Bank project underscores ABB’s innovative offshore wind technology and expertise.

It also highlights the success of ABB Power Grids’ customer partnerships, both on design optimization as well as on the business model level,” said Claudio Facchin, President of ABB’s Power Grids business.

“ABB is committed to delivering sustainable solutions with pioneering technologies and in the Dogger Bank project we are helping to make offshore wind competitive and thus contributing to a stronger, smarter and greener grid.”

Paul Cooley, Director of Capital Projects at SSE Renewables, said: “Dogger Bank is truly a world-leading project, pushing new boundaries in the provision of ground-breaking technology to deliver low-carbon energy generation to help achieve the UK’s net-zero ambition by 2050. The appointment of Aibel and ABB as project partners will ensure that the latest grid solution technology is deployed to support our successful project delivery.”

Halfdan Brustad, Vice President for Dogger Bank at Equinor, said: “This is an important milestone for Dogger Bank with a groundbreaking HVDC technology solution enabling a competitive solution for offshore wind at a long distance from shore. This will be the first offshore HVDC solution in the UK which opens up new markets and opportunities. The appointment of Aibel and ABB demonstrates cross-industry collaboration bringing the best expertise into a successful Dogger Bank delivery.”

Creyke Beck A and B, and Teesside A are the three wind farm projects that are included in the Dogger Bank development. It will also make a major contribution to the goal set by the Government of UK to source about three parts of its electricity from the offshore winds by 2030. The contracts for Creyke Beck A and Creyke Beck B has been given to ABB.

Commercial HVDC technology was pioneered by ABB more than 60 years ago. It is a great alternative for the transmission of large amounts of electricity to the alternating current for providing better efficiency and reduction in electric loss. HVDC provides secure and stable transmission of electricity to networks that work at varying voltages and frequencies thereby, making it suitable for many key power applications. This helps in connecting renewable energy from offshore wind farms and interconnections with AC networks.

Reference: abb