Chantiers de l’Atlantique has completed the construction and integration of two offshore electrical substations for the 660 MW Nordseecluster A offshore wind farm, currently under construction off the German coast.
Each of the topsides is approximately 40 metres long and 22 metres high, with one weighing about 1,800 tonnes, while the other one comes in at around 2,500 tonnes.
The substations will depart Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard in Saint-Nazaire, France, by the end of the month and set sail to the Nordseecluster A site in the North Sea, around 50 kilometres north of the German island of Juist, where the foundations for the two substations have already been installed.
The Nordseecluster A substations will collect electricity generated by 44 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines, increase the voltage and transmit the power to TenneT’s DolWin kappa converter station, from where the electricity will flow to shore.
The Nordseecluster substations are also equipped to gather operational data from the wind farms and to enable remote monitoring and control from land, according to RWE.
Offshore construction on Nordseecluster A is well underway with foundation installation completed at the end of last year and cable-laying work now in full swing.
The installation of the 44 wind turbines is scheduled to begin in summer 2026, with the 660 MW offshore wind farm planned to be be commissioned in early 2027.
The second Nordseecluster phase, Nordseecluster B, will contribute an additional 900 MW through its 60 wind turbines from 2029. Fabrication work for the second phase has already begun.
The 1.6 GW Nordseecluster project is owned by RWE (51 per cent) and Norges Bank Investment Management (49 per cent).