BORKUM 2
In September 2007 E.ON Netz awarded ABB the contract to supply a 400 MW HVDC Light® transmission system that will integrate the world’s largest offshore wind farm into the German grid.
The Borkum 2 wind farm will be developed by BARD Engineering GmbH. It will consist of 80 x 5 MW wind generators located about 130 km from the coast in the North Sea. The generators will feed power into a 36 kV AC cable system which will be transformed to 154 kV for the HVDC Light® offshore station. The receiving station will be located at Diele, 75 km from the coast where the power will be injected into the German 380 kV grid. ABB is responsible for system engineering including design, supply and installation of the offshore converter, underwater and underground cable systems and the onshore converter.
NORNED
When it is commissioned at the end of 2007, the 580 km NorNed link, a 700 MW interconnection between Norway and the Netherlands, will be the world’s longest underwater high-voltage cable.
ABB is carrying out the project on behalf of two state-owned power grid companies, TenneT in the Netherlands and Statnett in Norway. The interconnection will lead to power trading between the two countries and increase the reliability of electricity supply. Traditional AC transmission systems with undersea cables cannot be longer than about 60 to 100 km. Beyond this, the losses are prohibitive. The NorNed cable, operating at +/- 450kV and laid in water as deep as 420 m in some places, will have losses of only around four per cent.
SHARYLAND
Sharyland Utilities has awarded ABB the contract for a 150 MW back-to-back HVDC tie at Mission, Texas on the border with Mexico. The tie will enable power exchange with the Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) in Mexico and also increase reliability of power in the Rio Grande Valley. It will be the first largescale open-access asynchronous interconnection suitable for commercial purposes between the ERCOT system in the USA and CFE. (The 36 MW Eagle Pass / Piedras Negras HVDC Light link can also allow power exchange between ERCOT and CFE.) OUTAOUAIS
Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie and Hydro One Networks are constructing a new interconnection between the 315 kV grid in Ontario and the 315 kV grid in Québec. ABB is delivering a back-to-back HVDC converter station, Outaouais, which will add 1,250 MW of transmission capacity between the two Canadian provinces by 2009. In addition to improving grid reliability in both provinces, Ontario will benefit by having substantially more access to emission-free hydroelectric power from Québec that replaces fossil fuel sources.
SAPEI
The SAPEI link will be the second link from Sardinia to the Italian mainland. Terna - Rete Elettrica Nazionale SpA, awarded the contract for two HVDC converter stations - one in Fiume Santo, Sardinia and the other in Latina, on the Italian mainland - to ABB in 2006. The HVDC system, a bipole of a total of 1,000 MW, will be an important strategic link to deliver surplus power from the island of Sardinia to the Italian mainland, and help strengthen Italy’s power grid near Rome.
VALHALL
BP is relying on ABB’s HVDC Light Technology to supply power for the entire offshore AC system for the redevelopment of its Valhall North Sea oil and gas field – its ‘flagship for the field of the future’. The offshore gas turbines will be decommissioned, and all the field’s 78 MW of power will be delivered over a distance of 300 km from the Norwegian coast.