Aibel and Keppel FELS strike DolWin5 steel

Aibel and Keppel FELS have held a strike steel ceremony at Keppel FELS’ shipyard in Singapore to mark the start of construction of the DolWin5 high voltage direct current (HVDC) offshore converter platform.

Transmission system operator TenneT selected the Aibel/Keppel FELS consortium to supply the offshore HVDC platform and an onshore converter station for the DolWin5 offshore grid connection to be installed in the German North Sea.

“After a year and a half of hard work on engineering and procurement in a challenging time, it is a great pleasure to see that the platform will now begin to take physical shape,” said Project Director for DolWin 5 in Aibel, Svein Haug.

The platform will be completed at the Keppel FELS yard in spring 2023. Then it will be transported to Aibel’s yard in Haugesund, Norway, where the HVDC equipment from Hitachi ABB will be installed before final completion.

In 2024, the finished platform will be installed in the DolWin cluster in the North Sea, where Aibel’s first offshore wind platform, DolWin beta, is also located.

“This is a great opportunity to highlight our shared ability to deliver to the customer as agreed. Furthermore, we will set the standard for future renewable projects, by demonstrating our competitiveness and ability to carry out large and complex projects,” said Executive Vice President for Field Development and Offshore Wind in Aibel, Nils Arne Hatleskog.

Once commissioned, the DolWin5 (Epsilon) platform will deliver 900 MW of electricity from three connected wind farms in the North Sea, 100 kilometres off the German coast.

DolWin 5 is the second offshore wind platform that Aibel has now under construction since the company started construction of the Dogger Bank A platform at its own yard in Thailand in August.