GE Renewable Energy’s Grid Solutions business has been awarded a multi-million dollar project for the design, supply, construction and commissioning of onshore and offshore wind substations for the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind farm, 12 miles off the Fife coast in Scotland.
The offshore wind farm project is jointly owned by EDF Renewables and ESB. EDF Renewables is one of the UK’s leading renewable energy companies and ESB is an Irish Energy Company operating across the electricity market on the island of Ireland, with an established and growing presence in Great Britain. GE is responsible for the turnkey delivery of all infrastructure within the perimeter, including ground works and civil construction. NnG is expected to be fully operational in 2023.
Wind power is Scotland’s fastest growing renewable energy technology. Some say that the country is in the midst of a “wind energy revolution.” Figures from Weather Energy show that between January and June of 2019, wind turbines in Scotland provided enough electricity to power the equivalent of 4.47 million homes—almost twice the entire country’s domestic power requirements.
Neart na Gaoithe (which literally means “Strength of the Wind”) will play a major role in meeting the carbon emissions reduction targets of both the Scottish and UK governments. The 400/220 kilovolt (kV) onshore wind substation will be built on a greenfield site. Once NnG is operational, it will offset more than 400,000 tons of CO2 emissions each year and provide enough electricity to power more than 375,000 Scottish homes.
“GE’s Grid Solutions business is very proud to work with our consortium collaborators to support both shareholders in their growing portfolios of onshore and offshore wind farms as well as to help deliver low carbon electricity generation in the UK,” said Gerhard Seyrling, GE’s Grid Solutions president & CEO Europe, Russia & CIS.
In a consortium arrangement, GE is collaborating with HSM Offshore BV in the Netherlands and IV-One. HSM will provide the offshore topside platform designed by IV-One, that will house GE’s 220 kV and 66 kV substations.
The project’s onshore and offshore substation equipment includes four power transformers, four reactors, the static synchronous compensator (STATCOM), power quality components, and gas insulated switchgear—at 66 kV, 220 kV and 400 kV—as well as protection and control, SCADA, and telecommunications systems. This solution will allow for 450 megawatts (MW) of low carbon energy to be connected to the Scottish electricity grid.