The giant yellow offshore wind converter platform that has dominated Haugesund’s skyline over the past year is now ready to depart Aibel’s yard for installation offshore Germany.
The HVDC offshore wind converter platform DolWin epsilon has been designed and built by a consortium between Aibel and Seatrium (formerly Keppel FELS) for the German transmission system operator TenneT. Aibel has carried out engineering, procurement, and project management, while the platform was constructed by Seatrium in Singapore. It arrived in Haugesund in 2024 and has been completed and commissioned in close collaboration with Aibel’s partner Hitachi Energy, which designed, delivered and installed the HVDC equipment, including converter valves, transformers and high voltage switchgear on board.
The platform is now ready for its journey to the German North Sea, where it will be installed in the DolWin cluster approximately 60 kilometres northwest of the German island of Borkum. Once arrived at its destination, the final stages of the commissioning for the HVDC system as well as the platform systems will be completed.
“We are proud to have delivered yet another advanced converter platform to the European offshore wind market just a few weeks after delivering the last of three platforms to the Dogger Bank wind farm in England. This marks over ten years of involvement in the green transition since we delivered our first offshore wind converter platform – also to TenneT – back in 2015,” says Aibel President and CEO Mads Andersen.
Once on site, the 84-meter-tall and 27,000-ton platform will become a key component in TenneT’s DolWin5 offshore grid connection system, where it will transport green electricity from offshore wind farms to land. This offshore grid connection has a theoretical transmission capacity of 900 MW, which is enough to supply more than 1.1 million households with green electricity.
