New Transmission Technology Is Helping UK Offshore Wind Farms Go Bigger, Farther
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Reve.
It is rather technical, but it describes how the electricity is brought onshore from the 1.4 GW Sofia wind-farm, which is being built 220 kilometres out in the North Sea on the Dogger Bank. where upwards of 5 GW of capacity is proposed.
New lighter equipment is being used to convert the electricity to and from DC to bring it ashore at Lazenby, on Teesside. Note that sub-sea electricity links usually use high-voltage direct current or HVDC, The equipment has been designed and built by GE in Stafford.
It looks like the North East of England will have enough power.
The North Sea Wind Power Hub
The North Sea Wind Power Hub, will lie to the East of the UK capacity on the Dogger Bank in European territorial waters. This is the introductory paragraph from Wikipedia.
North Sea Wind Power Hub is a proposed energy island complex to be built in the middle of the North Sea as part of a European system for sustainable electricity. One or more “Power Link” artificial islands will be created at the northeast end of the Dogger Bank, a relatively shallow area in the North Sea, just outside the continental shelf of the United Kingdom and near the point where the borders between the territorial waters of Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark come together. Dutch, German, and Danish electrical grid operators are cooperating in this project to help develop a cluster of offshore wind parks with a capacity of several gigawatts, with interconnections to the North Sea countries. Undersea cables will make international trade in electricity possible.
So will the connection to Lazenby, also be used to bring electricity from the North Sea Wind Power Hub to the UK, when we need it? And will electricity from our part of the Dogger Bank be exported to Europe, when they need it?
The North Sea Intranet of electricity is emerging and it could be one of the biggest factors in the decarbonisation of Western Europe.
The technology developed at Stafford, will be needed to support all this zero-carbon electricity.
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