Siemens 2008 Annual Report Download - page 52

46 Products and solutions – Energy Sector
Transporting energy under the sea
The Basslink undersea cable connection in Australia
and the Greater Gabbard wind farm in the UK
Energy sources are not always located where they’re needed. The Australian state of Victoria, for
example, relies on ecofriendly hydropower generated 295 kilometers away on Tasmania. Thanks to
our outstanding technological expertise, the island is now linked to Victoria via Basslink, one of
the world’s longest undersea power cable connections. The link uses a high-voltage direct-current
(HVDC) transmission system developed by Siemens. As the project’s consortium leader, we’re
responsible for the entire HVDC system and all its key components. Huge amounts of power can
now be efciently transported not only over long distances but also in two directions: during dry
periods, when Tasmania’s reservoirs are too low to generate power, Basslink transports electricity
from the Australian mainland to the island.
Within a few years, an advanced undersea grid connection from Siemens will also be transporting
energy to the UK, where we recently won a contract to link the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm
to the national power grid. When completed in 2011, Greater Gabbard will produce 504 mega watts
of electricity from 140 Siemens wind turbines. The farm, which will be the world’s largest offshore
wind turbine installation, is being built in the North Sea, 25 kilometers off the coast of Suffolk. To
link Greater Gabbard to the UK grid, Siemens is constructing two high-sea platforms with a trans-
former substation on each. The electricity generated in the farm’s turbines will be concentrated
at each platform and then transported to the coast via undersea cable. The Greater Gabbard proj-
ect demonstrates the exceptional range of our unique wind power portfolio – which encompasses
everything from the manufacture and supply of high-tech wind turbines and the installation of
high-efciency grid connections for offshore wind farms to the preparation of preliminary net-
work studies.