Work begins on BorWin kappa
Roberto Cecchini, McDermott project director, BorWin6 (left) and Valentin Fontana, TenneT project director BorWin6
(Source: McDermott/TenneT)
The first steel has now been cut on the BorWin kappa converter platform at a shipyard in Jebel Ali in the UAE. The converter station is a key link in connecting BorWin6, due on stream in 2027 with a grid connection capacity of 980 MW.
The project involves high-voltage direct current transmission from the offshore wind farm to the extra-high voltage grid in Büttel, Schleswig-Holstein. The energy produced off the coast of Lower Saxony will be fed to TenneT’s BorWin kappa converter platform where it will be converted to direct current for transmission to the Büttel converter station. The conversion to direct current reduces losses along the 235-km cable route.
The converter platform or topside will be placed on a substructure or jacket which will start to be built in Batam, Indonesia, in September. Installation is scheduled for 2026. It will be transported through the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay and installed on the jacket in a ‘float-over’ procedure.
Other key developments in the project include horizontal drilling under the land protection dike near Büsum, and later under the Kiel Canal, will begin this year. The land cable will be laid in 2024 and 2025; the submarine cable in 2025 and 2026. Initial construction preparations for the land station in Büttel have been completed and its actual construction will begin in 2024.
