German Offshore Platform Tested for Air Leaks

Bremerhaven-based engineering specialist b.offshore has carried out Door Fan Tests on TenneT’s HelWin beta offshore converter platform in the German North Sea.

Room air-tightness tests for extinguishing gas systems, also known as Door Fan Tests, were carried out in approximately twenty rooms onboard the HelWin beta, b.offshore said.

Gas extinguishing systems can only extinguish fires quickly and reliably if the required concentration of the extinguishing gas can be maintained for at least ten minutes. This inspection must therefore be carried out regularly over the entire lifecycle of an offshore converter station to ensure that any leaks are detected and sealed in good time, b.offshore said.

“The positive test results that we achieved at HelWin beta are a very satisfactory outcome for our first Door Fan Test at an offshore converter station belonging to TenneT. We are confident that our process will enable us to test the functionality of extinguishing gas devices on offshore converter stations quickly, efficiently and with the lowest possible disturbance of work processes on site,” said Thomas Pontow, Managing Director of b.offshore GmbH.

The HelWin beta converter platform is part of the 690MW HelWin2 grid connection system for wind farms near Helgoland. HelWin2 was commissioned in June 2015.