Nordic Yards finds niche in offshore wind farm transformer platform construction

In a reminder that there’s more to offshore wind farms than turbines, Germany shipbuilder Nordic Yards has started construction work on its third offshore transformer platform, SylWin Alpha, which is to be installed west of  the island of Sylt to provide the grid connection for DanTysk and Butendiek offshore wind farms.

SylWin alpha is the third offshore transformer platform to be built by Nordic Yards for Siemens Energy. Three of the six offshore HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current)  transformer platforms currently being built worldwide are under construction at Nordic Yards. This makes Nordic Yards the world market leader in the manufacture of transformer platforms, providing an interesting market niche for a shipbuilding group that has had a number of incarnations, including  as Wadan Yards and before that periods under the ownership of STX Europe and Aker Yards (Aker Philadelphia was actually modeled on the group’s Warnemünde yard).

The SylWin Alpha topside, the actual platform, and the jacket, the foundation, will be manufactured and optimized at the two Nordic Yards shipyards in Warnemünde and Wismar. With an overall height of approximately 80 m, a width of 56 m and a length of over 82 m, SylWin alpha is not only larger than the two platforms already under construction at Nordic Yards, BorWin beta and HelWin alpha, it is the largest platform of its type to be built so far. The transformer platform will be installed in the North Sea, about 70 km west of Sylt, and will transform and transmit to the German mainland up to 864 megawatts of energy generated by the DanTysk and Butendiek wind farms.

This week the the first steel blank cut for the platform was made at the Rostock-Warnemünde shipyard in the presence of representatives of the client, Siemens Energy, and the end customer, TenneT.

“This day marks an important milestone in the further development of Nordic Yards’ competence in the offshore field. Because of the size and extended scope of this project, SylWin alpha is even more complex and challenging than its predecessors. We are looking forward to a continuing excellent working relationship with Siemens and TenneT,” says Vitaly Yusufov, the Russian entrepreneur who is the owner and Managing Director of Nordic Yards.

May 4, 2012