Map of the offshore wind power farms in the German Bight

HVDC BorWin1 is the first

HVDC A high-voltage direct current (HVDC) electric power transmission system (also called a power superhighway or an electrical superhighway) uses direct current (DC) for electric power transmission, in contrast with the more common alternating curren ...

facility in the world to be built for importing power from an

offshore wind Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of c ...

park to shore, and the first to use voltage source converters (VSC) in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. It connects the offshore wind park BARD Offshore 1 and other offshore wind farms in Germany near

Borkum Borkum ( nds, Borkum, Börkum) is an island and a municipality in the Leer District in Lower Saxony, northwestern Germany. It is situated east of Rottumeroog and west of Juist. Geography Borkum is bordered to the west by the Westerems strait ...

to the European power grid. The facility was built by ABB and has a capacity of 400 MW at a bipolar voltage of ±150 kV. HVDC BorWin1, which leads from

BorWin Alpha HVDC BorWin1 is the first HVDC facility in the world to be built for importing power from an offshore wind park to shore, and the first to use voltage source converters (VSC) in Germany. It connects the offshore wind park BARD Offshore 1 and ...

Offshore Platform to Diele substation, consists of a of underground and of submarine cable. Unlike the later (and more powerful) HVDC connections that have been built for transmitting wind power to shore in Germany, Borwin 1 uses cascaded two-level converter submodules, i.e., a modular multilevel converter (MMC) scheme with a large step size, in which each half-bridge submodule contains several IGBTs connected in series for the required submodule voltage rating.

Pulse-width modulation Pulse-width modulation (PWM), or pulse-duration modulation (PDM), is a method of reducing the average power delivered by an electrical signal, by effectively chopping it up into discrete parts. The average value of voltage (and current) fed ...

(PWM) is used to improve the level of harmonics but filtering is still needed. One converter is provided at each end of the link, in the symmetrical monopole configuration. Borwin 1 is operated by the German Transmission System Operator TenneT (formerly Transpower Stromübertragungs GmbH). and construction and commissioning were completed in 2009, although the project has had many technical difficulties since that date. In March 2014 a fire on the platform caused the scheme to be shut down for several months. 'Dirty electricity' probe at BorWin1
, RE News, 11 June 2014.

Sites

BorWin Alpha

BorWin Alpha is the first

HVDC converter station An HVDC converter station (or simply converter station) is a specialised type of substation which forms the terminal equipment for a high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission line.Arrillaga, Jos; High Voltage Direct Current Transmission, se ...

in the world to be installed on an offshore platform. It is located in the

wind power Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to electricity generation, generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable energy, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller Environmental impact of wi ...

farms of the German Bight in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian S ...

. BorWin Alpha converts the power generated in offshore wind park BARD 1 into

direct current Direct current (DC) is one-directional flow of electric charge. An electrochemical cell is a prime example of DC power. Direct current may flow through a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through semiconductors, insulators, or even ...

at a voltage of 150 kV for HVDC-transmission to Diele. Operating as static inverter valves, the station BorWin alpha uses not thyristors, but

IGBT An insulated-gate bipolar transistor (IGBT) is a three-terminal power semiconductor device primarily used as an electronic switch, which, as it was developed, came to combine high efficiency and fast switching. It consists of four alternating lay ...

elements. BorWin alpha was built in a

shipyard A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...

Vlissingen, Netherlands Vlissingen (; zea, label=Zeelandic, Vlissienge), historically known in English as Flushing, is a municipality and a city in the southwestern Netherlands on the former island of Walcheren. With its strategic location between the Scheldt river a ...

with electrical equipment from ABB. The equipment was dragged with the

SSCV Thialf The SSCV ''Thialf'' is a huge semi-submersible crane vessel operated by Heerema Marine Contractors, and it was the largest crane vessel in the world until the became the largest in 2019. History The ship was constructed in 1985 as ''DB-102'' for ...

to the place of assembly and installed at the end of May and the beginning of June 2009. The overall height of BorWin alpha is 84 metres, from which 62 metres come from the carrying construction, the so-called Jacket. The weight of the entire platform is 5000 tons. Of this 1800 tons come from the Jacket.

References

External links

Grid connection BorWin1 (transpower)

BorWin 1 HVDC system
CIGRÉ Compendium of all HVDC Projects.
Entry on structurae.net

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hvdc Borwin1 Electric power transmission systems in Germany Energy infrastructure completed in 2009 HVDC transmission lines Electrical interconnectors in the North Sea 2009 establishments in Germany