Norway – BW Ideol has signed an agreement with Hitachi ABB Power Grids for an industry-first collaboration on the development of scalable floating substations to support the development of profitable commercial-scale floating offshore wind farms with high-capacity wind turbines.
The next frontier in offshore wind power is floating offshore wind. The installed capacity of floating offshore wind facilities is predicted to increase from 66 MW in 2019 to at least 6.2 GW in 20301 as more countries in Europe, Asia, and North America develop deep-water wind resources. Substations are critical components of offshore wind farm infrastructure. Power is delivered by cable from each wind turbine to the offshore substation, where it is stepped up to a greater voltage and safely and reliably supplied to the onshore power system.
Substation packages
Hitachi ABB Power Grids will supply modular, scalable, and small substation systems for use on BW Ideol’s shallow-draft floating platforms. For several years, both firms have collaborated extensively to develop a standardized and modular system that fulfills market requirements as well as the particular demands of operating in the most extreme environmental and seabed conditions.
With BW Ideol’s unique shallow draft approach, floating substations will also be able to be deployed with bottom-fixed wind farms to offset tough seabed conditions and/or challenging offshore installation operations. The substations will include transformers, switchgear, and other high-voltage components developed specifically for floating offshore platforms by Hitachi ABB Power Grids.
