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HVDC BorWin1 | |
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Location | |
Country | Germany |
Coordinates | 54°21′15″N 6°01′30″E / 54.35417°N 6.02500°E 53°7′31″N 7°18′33″E / 53.12528°N 7.30917°E |
General direction | north–south |
From | Platform BorWin Alpha |
Passes through | North Sea |
To | Diele substation |
Ownership information | |
Operator | TenneT |
Construction information | |
Manufacturer of conductor/cable | ABB |
Manufacturer of substations | ABB |
Construction started | 2007 |
Commissioned | 2009 |
Technical information | |
Type | submarine cable, subsoil cable |
Type of current | HVDC |
Total length | 200 km (120 mi) |
Power rating | 400 MW |
AC voltage | 170 kV (Platform BorWin Alpha), 380 kV (Diele) |
DC voltage | ±150 kV |
No. of circuits | 1 |
HVDC BorWin1 is the first HVDC facility in the world to be built for importing power from an offshore wind park to shore, and the first to use voltage source converters (VSC) in Germany. It connects the offshore wind park BARD Offshore 1 and other offshore wind farms in Germany near Borkum to the European power grid. The facility was built by ABB and has a capacity of 400 MW at a bipolar voltage of ±150 kV. HVDC BorWin1, which leads from BorWin Alpha Offshore Platform to Diele substation, consists of a 75 kilometres (47 mi) of underground and 125 kilometres (78 mi) of submarine cable.
Unlike the later (and more powerful) HVDC connections that have been built for transmitting wind power to shore in Germany, Borwin 1 uses cascaded two-level converter submodules, i.e., a modular multilevel converter (MMC) scheme with a large step size, in which each half-bridge submodule contains several IGBTs connected in series for the required submodule voltage rating. Pulse-width modulation (PWM) is used to improve the level of harmonics but filtering is still needed. One converter is provided at each end of the link, in the symmetrical monopole configuration.
Borwin 1 is operated by the German Transmission System Operator TenneT (formerly Transpower Stromübertragungs GmbH).[1][2] and construction and commissioning were completed in 2009, although the project has had many technical difficulties since that date. In March 2014 a fire on the platform caused the scheme to be shut down for several months. [3]