Balfour grabs Hywind gig

Balfour Beatty has won a contract from Statoil for the electrical system interface for the 30MW Hywind floating offshore wind farm off the Scottish coast.

The £5.5m deal includes the substation and cables onshore, engineering, procurement, construction and installation.

The project office for the engineering phase will be in Kintore outside Aberdeen.

Statoil will also deploy a 1MW storage system at the project.

The Batwind battery is based on lithium technology and will be installed at the end of 2018, the Norwegian energy company said.

Batwind is being developed in collaboration with Scottish universities and suppliers under a memorandum of understanding signed in Edinburgh last week between Statoil, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult, Scottish Enterprise and the Scottish Government.

Hywind will feature five Siemens SWT-6.0-154 machines on floating spar foundations in waters up to 120 metres deep 25km off Peterhead. It is due to be fully operational in 2017.

Statoil’s executive director of offshore wind Stephen Bull said: “Statoil has a strong market position within offshore wind. By developing new solutions for battery storage, we can increase the value of wind power for both Statoil and our customers.

“With Batwind we can optimize the energy system from the wind farm to the power grid. Battery storage represents a new solution in our portfolio and can help to realise our ambition of profitable growth in this market. “

Scotland’s energy minister Fergus Ewing said: “The signing of this agreement allows the parties to work together to develop battery storage solution Batwind.

“This will help to increase the supply of renewable energy from offshore wind Hywind, enhance the development of energy storage and demonstrate the technology’s potential to support the development of renewable energy in Scotland and internationally.”

Statoil also recently awarded Isleburn a contract for 15 suction anchors for the project, with other contracts going to other local suppliers including Saipem for heavy lift mating operations and Aberdeen-based Xodus Group for environmental impact assessment.

Image: Statoil