A wind of change – offshore Germany TenneT BorWin alpha

Established experience in offshore wind

Location: German North Sea

2009: our first operations and maintenance consultancy services contract on BorWin Alpha

Current: major award from TenneT for the BorWin3 offshore wind farm grid connection

For five years Petrofac has had a foothold in the German offshore wind market, providing people, maintenance and support services to the Borwin Alpha, a 400MW high voltage direct current (HVDC) platform operated by TenneT.

In 2010 Petrofac began supplying engineering, design, construction and project management services to the DolWin1 HVDC platform and in 2012 established Petrofac Deutschland GmbH to support current and future project scopes out of Hamburg.

We cemented our experience in the German North Sea in 2013 when we won a logistics management contract from Siemens Energy, the first project of its kind in Germany.  Our support delivers logistics management and platform management support for BorWin 2 and HelWin1 HVDC platforms.

Our strong track record and in-house capabilities have been instrumental in reinforcing our relationship with the energy giant, enabling us to secure a major contract with TenneT, the network operator for the BorWin 3 HVDC platform. When built, the platform will be one of the largest of its kind. The award deepens our relationship with Siemens and allows us to utilise our vast experience gained through our 30-year history of delivering large scale, complex projects in the North Sea.

Petrofac will be responsible for the engineering, procurement, construction and offshore installation of the BorWin3 platform, which will house a Siemens HVDC station that converts the alternating current to direct current before transmitting it onshore to the German grid.

Key facts

• Petrofac has been providing people, maintenance and support services to the German offshore wind sector since January 2009
• the BorWin Alpha station was the first of its kind in the world and boasts the longest HVDC connection between an offshore wind farm and the onshore electricity grid
• in October 2010, our scope of work was expanded, this time with ABB, to provide engineering, design, construction and project management services to the DolWin1 platform
• in 2012, we founded Petrofac Deutschland GmbH in Germany to support our ongoing operations and contracts
• in July 2013, Petrofac was engaged by Siemens to provide support during the commissioning phase of two offshore wind converter station platforms in the German North Sea Borwin 2 and Helwin 1
• in April 2014, a consortium between Siemens and Petrofac won the EPCI contract for the BorWin 3 HVDC platform. When complete, it will be one of the largest of its kind with a transmission capacity of 900MW