Offshore substation at DanTysk wind farm gets upgrade

Bakker Sliedrecht has upgraded the automation system at the offshore energy substation of the DanTysk offshore wind farm in Germany.

Bakker Sliedrecht replaced, among other things, the Ethernet switches in the fiber optic ring for the communication between all systems, the switches, redundant SCADA servers and redundant PLC controllers that control the platform.

According to the company, this had to be done without shutting down the energy supply from the wind farm. As a result, the transport of electricity to the coast could continue without failure.

“The remotely controlled automation system controls and monitors the essential functions on the platform, such as the cooling system and the cooling water pumps. That is of crucial importance on a platform where 288 megawatts of energy is brought together,” said Bakker Sliedrecht automation engineer Bart van Wijngaarden.

Project leader Fred Hordijk added that is why a whole new network had to be built next to the existing one and step by step testing was carried out.

“First we transferred the less critical systems. Only when they worked well we moved on and transferred the next systems and eventually the critical ones. That went well,” Hordijk concluded.

To remind, at the construction of the substation in 2012, Bakker Sliedrecht supplied various components and integrated all systems within the electrical and instrumentation system.

DanTysk comprises 80 Siemens 3.6 MW turbines installed some 70km west of the island of Sylt. The 288 MW offshore wind farm has been in operation since 2014.