Siemens has received an order for the maintenance and upkeep of the Offshore Substation (OSS) and turbine substructures of the Veja Mate offshore project.
In 2015 , Siemens received an order for 67 of its 6MW class turbines for the 400MW wind farm. The agreement also includes all vessel operations and a 15-year service and maintenance contract. The company will now also be responsible for the scheduled maintenance and upkeep of the OSS, the turbine transition pieces as well as inspection of their underwater substructures.
The maintenance agreement has a term of five years and will begin with commissioning scheduled for mid-2017.
“We are able to service a multitude of different systems offshore and obtain the skills to reliably and sustainably provide full maintenance of electrical, mechanical and structural components, including planning and logistics as well as fault clearance for complex projects – built by Siemens or other market players,” said Ralf Christian , CEO of the Siemens Energy Management Division. “Our strength is our network of partners and suppliers, our planning skills, our well-trained technicians and reliability in service performance and management of complex service requirements.”
Siemens will also build and operate an operations control centre (OCC) in Hamburg, equipped with SCADA software provided by Veja Mate for the operational control of the wind farm. Siemens will be responsible for the entire offshore logistics, correcting faults on site and using EPCI contractor supplied spare parts and consumables during warranty.
For the turbines, Siemens will provide an advanced logistics concept, tailored specifically for far-shore projects, that uses both a helicopter and a specially designed, purpose-built service operation vessel (SOV). The concept allows maintenance work to be carried out at almost all times irrespective of the weather conditions or wave height.
The 400MW project will be connected via an offshore grid connection using high-voltage direct current (HVDC) technology from Siemens. Siemens handed the BorWin2 grid connection over to the operator in January 2015. This grid connection can transmit a total of just under 800MW of clean wind energy, which is sufficient to supply power to approximately one million German homes.