Scotland’s Largest Offshore Wind Test Site Generates First Power
Tuesday 3 July 2018
EOWDC turbine exports power to National Grid as commissioning continues.
The ground-breaking European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC) generated power for the first time on Sunday, July 1. Clean power from the pioneering offshore wind farm, developed by Swedish energy group Vattenfall, is being successfully exported to the National Grid from the first of the 11 turbines to go live.
The power was exported via the scheme’s innovative 66 kilovolt (kV) subsea cabling – the first time that cabling of this capacity has been installed on a commercial offshore wind project in Scotland.
Power from the turbines at the EOWDC is being exported through, two ‘strings’ of 4km export cable with a capacity of 66kV. Compared with conventional cabling of 33kV less inter-array cabling is required leading to reduced construction cost. Overall, just over 21km of cabling has been installed from the EOWDC to Blackdog Substation - similar to the distance from Aberdeen to Stonehaven.