Name of the Project
Sofia Offshore Wind Farm.

Location
The project is located on Dogger Bank, 195 km from the UK coast’s nearest point.

Project Owner/s
RWE, through its subsidiary RWE Renewables.

Project Description
The project entails the construction of a 1.4 GW offshore wind farm.

One hundred 14 MW turbines will be installed on site, each 262 m tall.

A network of about 370 km of interarray cables will transport power from the turbines to the wind farm’s offshore converter platform, where the electricity will be converted from 66 kV ac to 320 kV dc. The converter will be the most powerful offshore converter station ever fabricated.

Offshore, two 220-km-long export cables – forming a single high-voltage direct current (HVDC) circuit – will bring the power from the wind farm to the Teeside coast.

Onshore, two 7 km direct current cables – forming a single HVDC – will transport power from landfall to a new converter station adjacent to the Wilton Complex, near the village of Lazenby. A further six 2 km ac cables will transmit power to the existing national grid substation at Lazenby.

Potential Job Creation
Not stated.

Capital Expenditure
Not stated.

Planned Start/End Date
First power is expected in 2024/25.

Latest Developments
Etion Create has secured a contract to supply its VF360 OpenVPX boards for the core computing units (CCUs) installed in the project.

Consortium lead for the project GE Grid Solutions specifically required high-performance VPX-based digital signal processing (DSP) technology for its eLumina HVDC control system, Etion Create system engineer Piet du Toit has said.

The HVDC electrical transmission system that GE will supply relies on specialised DSP and high-reliability VPX technologies for its control and protection systems to ensure maximum system availability.

DSP is typically used in application-specific processors or computers for real-time floating point calculations, as it has a high level of accuracy, which is required in high-performance computing platforms, such as GE’s eLumina HVDC control system CCU.

Key Contracts, Suppliers and Consultants
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (wind turbines); GE Grid Solutions (voltage source converter valve and HVDC control system); Sembcorp Marine (offshore converter platform); and Etion Create (boards for the core computing units).

Contact Details for Project Information
RWE, tel +44 330 122 9670.