The wind turbines in Borssele III & IV and V can be connected to TenneT’s high voltage grid one month earlier than planned. The grid operator announced today that the 700 MW connection, Borssele Beta, is ready.
TenneT has received the “Grid Readiness” certification from DNV GL. This means that this offshore grid connection complies fully with the conditions set out in the so-called Offshore Wind Energy Development Framework. TenneT reports that the project was also realized within budget.
The generated power from the wind turbines in the 731.5 MW offshore wind farm Borssele III & IV of the Blauwwind consortium and the demonstration site V (of Two Towers) is collected in the offshore transformer station and converted from 66 kV to 220 kV. This offshore station, built by HSM Offshore, was installed in April this year. NKT Cables and VBMS were responsible for the construction of the cable connection.
Via an export cable connection, consisting of two 67 km long cables, the power is transported to the substation in Borssele where it is converted to 380kV so that it can be connected to the high-voltage grid. TenneT is currently working on the upgrading of the 150kV grid in Zeeland and the 380kV connection between the high-voltage substations Borssele and Rilland.
Standardised offshore connection
Borssele Beta is the second part of the Borssele high voltage connection. The first, Borssele Alpha, was completed in September 2019 and connects Ørsted’s Borssele 1&2 offshore wind farm which is expected to become fully operational later this year. With this, TenneT has realised the first 1,400 MW of the planned 3,500 MW by 2023. After this, Hollandse Kust (south) Alpha and Beta and Hollandse Kust (north) will follow. TenneT is using five identical 700 MW transformer platforms for these wind farms. These platforms are located close to the wind farms and all five use the same type of 220 kV cable connection to the coast.
This also applies to the planned wind farms in the wind energy areas Hollandse Kust (west) and Ten Noorden van de Waddeneilanden. For the wind farm in the IJmuiden Ver wind area, two offshore converter stations of 2 GW each will be built. These 3 wind farms will be built in the period from 2024 to 2030 and have a total capacity of 6.1 GW.
