DNV GL, the world’s largest resource of independent energy experts and certification body, announced that it has been contracted to provide technical advisory support on feasibility studies for the first-ever, high-voltage direct current (HVDC) offshore wind substation in China.
China has committed heavily to developing its offshore wind-power capacity. It currently plans to have 5 GW of offshore wind power installed by 2020 and in 2017 alone it installed almost 1.2 GW of offshore wind capacity. This brought the cumulative total installed capacity to nearly 2.8 GW, third globally behind the United Kingdom and Germany.
A key stage in the new project will be the creation of an offshore HVDC transmission system to export offshore power from the windfarm to the mainland, including offshore HVDC converter station, submarine cables and onshore HVDC converter station.
However, the country is now faced by the challenge that all the promising wind farm sites within 10 km of the shore have already been exploited. To boost capacity further and meet the 2020 target, China is having to explore locations that are further offshore. To this end, Huadong Engineering Corporation is planning a ground-breaking 1.1 GW offshore windfarm some 90 km off the coast of Jiangsu Province in eastern China.
To support the realization of this pioneering project, Huadong has contracted DNV GL to supply technical trainings and support on their feasibility study on aspects of conceptual design and risk assessment.
“Offshore HVDC transmission system is a new business for DNV GL China and the Asia Pacific region. So it is invaluable to be able to call on a partner such as DNV GL who brings global expertise in both HVDC technology and offshore engineering to the project,” said Haifeng Qi, President, Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited Renewable Energy Corporation. “Their experience in these areas will be a critical factor in successfully delivering a major new wind farm so far from land to help China continue to lead the way in offshore wind generation.”
Traditional submarine high-voltage alternating current (HVAC) cables become extremely inefficient when transporting large amounts of electricity over such long distances. In contrast, high-voltage direct current systems allow power to be transmitted over large distances under the sea with minimal losses. A key stage in the new project will be the creation of an offshore HVDC transmission system to export offshore power from the wind farm to the mainland, including offshore HVDC converter station, submarine cables and onshore HVDC converter station.
This will be the first offshore Voltage-Source Converter HVDC system in China.
“Comparing with onshore HVDC technology, offshore wind HVDC has unique specification and requires to combine both offshore wind and HVDC technology on the limited space, to satisfy safety and function requirement,” said William Pan, Head of Offshore Wind APAC, DNV GL – Energy. “DNV GL is very glad to work with the customer on this HVDC milestone project and accelerate the local offshore wind industry development with extensive offshore wind experiences.”
Filed Under: News, Offshore wind
