Singapore's Sembcorp Marine Offshore Platforms has awarded the early works contract to Iv-Offshore & Energy for the engineering of the offshore wind farm Sofia high voltage direct current (HVDC) platform.
Once operational, the RWE-operated Sofia offshore wind farm in the UK North Sea will be one of the largest offshore wind farms in the world with the 1.4-gigawatt capacity.
The wind farm site is located 195 km off the coast of the North East of England and on the shallow central area of the North Sea known as Dogger Bank.
Earlier this month, RWE has selected a GE Renewables/Sembcorp Marine JV as the supplier for high voltage direct current (HVDC) electrical transmission system.
Sembcorp Marine has now selected the Dutch engineering firm Iv-Offshore & Energy as its engineering subcontractor. Iv Offshore will provide detailed design for both the topside and jacket and procurement of topside equipment.
Sofia Offshore Wind Farm will consist of 100 wind turbines, with a total installed capacity of 1,400 MW. The offshore converter platform will convert the electricity generated by the turbines from 66 kilovolts (kV) alternating current (AC) up to 320kV direct current (DC) before transmission to shore.
In 2018, UK Grid Solutions Ltd (GE) and Iv-Offshore & Energy completed a FEED study for the proposed Sofia HVDC platform.
"For Iv-Offshore & Energy the contract is a great leap forward in the world of offshore HVDC engineering. We have planted our flag in this sector through our involvement starting with Borwin Alpha (400 MW) followed by Dolwin Alpha (800 MW) and Helwin Béta (690 MW) platforms and various engineering and design studies such as the 2 GW offshore grid connection FEED for TenneT.
"We are honored to add the Sofia platform to our HVDC experience list. We take our leading position within this sector with pride, knowing that we have reached this level of success because of our vast experience, unequaled competence and our excellent past performance," the company said in a statement."
Worth noting, the Sofia OWF project was previously run by Innogy. As part of a large asset swap deal with E.ON, RWE earlier this month took over Innogy's renewables business, along with its 2700 employees.
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