50Hertz Awards LanWin3 Converter Contract

July 19, 2024, by Adnan Memija

The transmission system operator (TSO) 50Hertz has awarded the consortium comprising Dragados Offshore, a subsidiary of Cobra IS, and Siemens Energy a EUR 2.9 billion contract to design, build, and install two electrical conversion stations.

The consortium’s scope of work consists of supplying an offshore converter for the LanWin3 grid connection project in the North Sea and an onshore converter.

The EPCI contract includes all engineering services, the procurement of the necessary components as well as the construction, transportation, and installation of the systems at sea and on land.

The offshore platform will be built at Dragados Offshore yard in Cádiz, southern Spain while the high-voltage direct current (HVDC) components for the converter will be manufactured at European production sites by Siemens Energy.

The converter systems are said to follow the 2 GW standard currently being designed for TSOs TenneT, Amprion, and 50Hertz.

The LanWin3 offshore grid connection will connect an offshore wind farm in the North Sea to the mainland. The wind farm area is located in the designated N-11.1 area, approximately 120 kilometres to the northwest of Helgoland, inside the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

latest news

From there, a sea and land cable will run over 200 kilometers long to the grid connection point in the Heide area in North Friesland. On the land side, the offshore grid connection systems LanWin3 (50Hertz) and LanWin2 (TenneT) will be connected there to the NordOstLink, an HVDC transmission line to be built in the direction of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The onshore counterpart to the offshore converter is to be built near Schwerin to convert the direct current into alternating current. Both the offshore grid connections and the HVDC will have a voltage level of 525 kV to be able to transport large amounts of electricity with low losses.

Cobra IS has already delivered DolWin 6 in 2023 and, with the newest contract, it will be responsible for building nine offshore power conversion platforms, which will have a total capacity of around 16 GW.