Hitachi Energy has provided China’s State Power Investment Corporation Limited (SPIC) with the country’s first 220kV modular and prefabricated offshore grid connection for the 500MW Shandong Peninsula South V wind farm off China’s northeast coast.
Hitachi Energy’s portfolio of Grid-eXpand modular and prefabricated grid connections reduced the size of the platform by around 30% and the weight by about 20%, equivalent to around 700 tonnes of steel and other costly materials, the company said.
This significantly lowered the cost of building the platform, towing it to the wind farm and erecting it on the seabed, it added.
The Grid-eXpand solution also cut the delivery time by eight weeks, compared to a conventional offshore grid connection, Hitachi added.
Each module was pre-engineered, pre-assembled and pretested before delivery, then shipped as a single prefabricated unit, ready for speedy erection on the platform at the shipyard, it said.
The Hitachi Energy solution receives the power generated by 71 wind turbines at 35kV and increases the voltage to an optimal 220kV for transmission to the mainland power grid.