EnBW lays first submarine cable for He Dreiht offshore wind farm
On behalf of EnBW Seaway7 installs the first of 64 cables for inner-array grid cabling measuring 100 kilometers in total length Karlsruhe/Hamburg.
EnBW is laying the first submarine cable for the internal wind farm cabling that connects all 64 wind turbines of the He Dreiht offshore wind farm. The company Seaway7 has been commissioned with the task.
Two installation vessels will have laid and buried a total of around 100 kilometers of cable on the seabed of the North Sea by the summer. The cables will then be pulled into the foundations of the wind turbines and connected. Cable manufacturer JDR manufactured the 66-kilovolt submarine cables in the UK.
The internal wind farm cabling will later be connected to the converter platform managed by the transmission system operator TenneT, which is due to be installed at sea in the summer.
This is where the generated electricity will be concentrated, converted from alternating current to direct current and brought ashore using two high-voltage DC export cables.
EnBW He Dreiht is currently the largest offshore wind farm in Germany with a total output of 960 megawatts (MW). It is being built about 85 kilometers northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers west of Heligoland without state funding. Around 2.4 billion euros have been invested in the wind farm. The major project is being coordinated by EnBW’s offshore office in Hamburg.
More than 500 people work on this large offshore construction site at peak times and over 60 vessels are involved. The 64 foundations were installed last year. From spring onwards, the latest generation of Vestas wind turbines will be installed, each with an output of 15 MW. EnBW He Dreiht will generate enough electricity to meet the needs of around 1.1 million households.
