Successful commissioning

Prysmian Group has successfully commissioned the High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) offshore grid connection project SylWin1 off the North Sea coast of Germany in a contract with the Dutch-German transmission system operator TenneT.

SylWin1 now links the offshore wind parks DanTysk and Butendiek, followed by Sandbank, located about 160 km offshore, to mainland Germany, passing to the east of Helgoland and continuing along a 45 km land route to the land converter station in Büttel, north-west of Hamburg and is now ready to start commercial operations.

The project marks a series of significant milestones, being the highest ever rated system for VSC technology, with a power rating of 864 MW, operating at the highest commercially available voltage level of ± 320 kV DC and employing an extruded cable connection along a total route of approximately 205 km (160 km offshore and 45 km onshore).

SylWin1 uses extruded HVDC cable technology from Prysmian together with Siemens HVDC Plus converter technology at the offshore platform and onshore stations. Prysmian Group has also installed the 155 kV HVAC submarine cables which connect the converter platforms to the respective individual offshore wind farm transformer platforms.

Issue 121 June 2015