Beatrice offshore wind power plant to be the first project equipped with new offshore grid access solution (illustration: Siemens)

Siemens has received a further order for an offshore wind power plant from Scotland. The company is to supply, install and commission 84 wind turbines, each with a 154-meter rotor diameter designed to generate 7 megawatts (MW) of power, for the Beatrice project. Furthermore, the scope of supply comprises the offshore grid connection to the mainland in consortium with Nexans who will supply the connecting export cables.

Siemens will deliver the onshore and offshore substations consisting of two offshore transformer modules (OTM) which are smaller in weight and size and thus saving costs. The customer, Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd. (BOWL), is a partnership formed between SSE (40%), Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (35%) and SDIC Power (25%). The offshore wind power plant’s capacity of 588 MW will be sufficient to supply more than 400,000 UK households with ecofriendly electricity. Siemens will additionally be responsible for servicing the wind farm over a period of 15 years.

“This is a significant order for our new 7-megawatt-class wind turbine,” says Michael Hannibal, CEO of the Offshore Market Unit of the Siemens Wind Power and Renewables Division. “We are looking forward to working with our customer on this large offshore wind power project off the Scottish coast.”

“We are proud to announce the first reference for our newly developed Offshore Transformer Module together with our customer,” states Mirko Düsel, CEO Transmission Solutions Business Unit at Siemens. “The application of light weight distributed substations is an important lever for reaching Siemens’ goal of reducing the costs of wind power generated offshore to below 10 euro cts/kWh by 2020.”

Tags: Siemens