Offshore Substation for Race Bank Windfarm Leaves Port of Antwerp
An offshore substation build by ENGIE Fabricom and Iemants for Dong Energy’s Race Bank 1 Offshore Windfarm has left the ENGIE Fabricom site in Hoboken.
The Race Bank wind farm consists of two substations and 91 6-MW wind turbines and lies 16.8 27.0km off the coast of Norfolk. The Race Bank wind farm has a total capacity of 573MW and will generate enough green electricity for 400,000 households in the UK. The wind farm should be fully operational in 2018. Shipping the substation requires meticulous planning and is only possible at high tide. The structure is 35m high and weighs 2,900t. On February 17, 2017, Race Bank 1 was removed from its base on the site and put on the pontoon.
Dong Energy awarded the contract for building five substations to the ENGIE Fabricom/Iemants consortium. ENGIE Fabricom is in charge of the entire construction and commissioning on site, while Iemants is responsible for the steel construction work on the five substations. The first of the five substations, the Burbo Bank substation, left the site in June last year and Race Bank 2 was fitted out in August 2016. Following Race Bank 1, this month the Walney 3 & 4 substations will also depart from Hoboken.
This is not the first time that Dong Energy has called on the ENGIE Fabricom/Iemants consortium for a substation construction project. In 2012, it supplied two substations for London Array (RWE and Dong Energy), and in 2013 the substation for West of Duddon Sands. In 2014, the consortium supplied two offshore substations for the Gode Wind 1 & 2 wind farm.