Trelleborg Wins Contract For BorWin3 Floatover
Trelleborg’s engineered products operation has been awarded a contract by the Siemens/Petrofac consortium for its first floatover installation of an offshore wind converter platform, BorWin3. The high voltage direct current (HVDC) converter station will sit nearly 130km off the German coast in the North Sea.
Siemens will supply the HVDC transmission technology, while consortium partner, Petrofac will be responsible for the construction and installation of the platform.
Vincent Tan, Sales and Marketing Manager for Trelleborg’s engineered products operation, says: “BorWin3 is only the third wind farm converter project in the world to utilise floatover technology, so it is a significant project not only for Trelleborg, but the industry too. For the installation of the 18,500t topside onto the substructure, we have been contracted to supply six sets of leg mating units (LMUs) and the same amount of deck support units (DSUs).”
Trelleborg’s LMUs make a floatover transition possible by damping the forces created as the topside’s load is transferred to the jacket. Consisting of steel structures filled with elastomeric pads, the LMUs are designed to take up the static and dynamic forces of the topside structure, as well as the horizontal forces due to open sea motions during installation. The assembled LMU can be installed either on the topside or substructure. In addition, DSUs are fixed on the barge that will transport the platform’s topside to its site offshore. These combat the destabilising effects of adverse weather and sea conditions during transport.
The converter is designed to transmit 900MW of wind power, which equates to the annual electricity consumption of one million German households. Trelleborg will begin fabrication of LMU’s and DSU’s with immediate effect and its solutions are scheduled for delivery in 2018. The entire project is due for completion in 2019.