Renewable energy major RWE has selected two suppliers — Siemens Energy and HSM Offshore Energy — for the electrical transmission system for the Thor offshore wind farm.
Siemens Energy is the preferred supplier for the design, construction and installation of the onshore high voltage substation. The work will be carried out by the company’s Offshore Center of Competence, located in Ballerup, Denmark.
HSM Offshore Energy will be the supplier for the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning of the offshore high voltage substation and its jacket foundation.
RWE will build the Thor wind farm off the Danish west coast –22 kilometres from Thorsminde on the west coast of Jutland. Thor wind farm will have a capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW). Thor will be Denmark’s largest offshore wind farm to date, RWE said in a news statement.
RWE will build two new substations – one at sea and one on land — to connect the wind farm to the Danish grid. The substation at sea is the nerve centre of the wind farm: the electricity produced by the wind turbines is collected here and transformed to transmission-level voltage.
The green electricity will be transported through export cables to the new-build onshore substation Volder Sondervang, which is located close to the coastline and the adjacent grid connection point of the Danish grid operator, Energinet. A corresponding grid connection agreement has already been signed between RWE and Energinet in spring.
Siemens Energy will commence design works, followed by the procurement of main equipment and the submission of permit applications. It is expected that construction activities can be kicked-off on site in spring 2023. Siemens Energy is planning to carry out the civil engineering and construction works together with MT Hojgaard Danmark, one of Denmark’s leading companies for large-scale building and infrastructure projects.
HSM Offshore Energy together with its engineering subcontractor Iv-Offshore & Energy has already delivered several offshore substations for Energinet in the Danish North Sea.
Thor offshore wind farm will increase Denmark’s share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources and help to reduce the country’s carbon emissions, in line with the European Green Deal. RWE’s Thor wind farm would be capable of producing green electricity to supply the equivalent of more than one million Danish households.
RWE will set-up a service base at the port of Thorsminde for the operation and maintenance of the wind farm. RWE aims to create up to 60 permanent jobs in the long-run. This includes technicians, engineers, nautical personnel as well as crew for the service vessels. It is expected that the new service station will be operational from 2026 onwards. RWE plans to support its wind farm for at least 30 years from this port.
RWE is already operating the Danish Rødsand 2 offshore wind farm, which is located south of the Danish island Lolland, 10 kilometres southeast of Rodbyhavn. The wind farm has an installed capacity of 207 MW (RWE share: 20 percent) and has been in operation since 2010.