Hitachi Energy, the global technology and market leader in power grids, today announced it has won a major order from Ørsted, the world-leading renewable energy company, to provide two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) systems to transmit green electricity from the Hornsea 3 wind farm, located more than 120 km off the UK east coast.
The wind farm will have the capacity to generate up to 2.85 gigawatts of renewable electricity, enough to power more than three million UK homes. With more than 200 wind turbines installed across almost 700 square kilometers*1, this will be the single largest offshore wind farm in the world. This project is a significant step towards the British Energy Security Strategy ambition of sourcing up to 50 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity by 2030.*2
Hitachi Energy has supported Ørsted with the grid connection of Hornsea 1*3 and Hornsea 2*4, but Hornsea 3 will be the first phase to use HVDC application in the Hornsea cluster.
Hitachi energy to enable a more flexible offshore grid in the future
The overall HVDC system, including the offshore platform, is delivered in partnership with Aibel*5. Hitachi Energy will supply two HVDC Light® converter systems, while Aibel will deliver two HVDC offshore converter platforms. The platform is based on Hitachi Energy’s modular HVDC system including its advanced control and protection system, MACH™. As the HVDC offshore market grows and becomes more complex, Hitachi Energy will continue to develop solutions with its customers and partners to enable a more flexible offshore grid of the future.
“Offshore wind is a critical part of the clean energy transition and our HVDC technology is vital for effective transmission to the mainland power grid,” said Niklas Persson, managing director of Hitachi Energy’s Grid Integration business. “To address the rapidly growing offshore market, partnerships and collaboration are key to deliver at the speed and scale required to reach our decarbonisation and energy security goals.”
“The Ørsted vision is a world that runs entirely on green energy and the Hornsea projects are a significant step towards this goal in the UK,” said Patrick Harnett, Vice President Programme UK at Ørsted. “Together with Hitachi Energy, we are demonstrating that renewables like offshore wind are a huge part of the world’s sustainability journey. Hornsea 3 will not just provide low cost, clean energy for millions of homes in the UK, it will also deliver thousands of high quality jobs and billions of pounds of investment in the offshore wind supply chain in the UK and beyond.”
Hitachi Energy is supplying four HVDC converter stations, which convert AC power to DC for transmission in the subsea cables, then reconvert it to AC for integration into the onshore grid. Two of the converter stations will be installed on offshore platforms and two at mainland grid connections.