SOFIA Windfarm Project – Technical assistance, design review and interaction studies

Situated on Dogger Bank, the Sofia wind farm will have one hundred 14 MW wind turbines with a total installed generation capacity of 1.4 GW.
Its commissioning is scheduled for 2025. The electricity generated will be transported to the British transmission network via a 220km-long HVDC line. Two HVDC-VSC General Electric converter stations will be built at both ends of the line.
RTE international has been brought in as a contractor to be an independent technical consultant and is working in conjunction with the project developer from RWE, the manufacturers of the system and the National Grid to enable this system to be integrated into the UK’s electricity supply.

Services delivered

• Examining the manufacturer’s system and check the compliance of its design with the specifications defined by the Sofia Offshore Wind Farm (SOWF) project developer
• Carrying out checks on the design of the equipment of the OFTO transmission system, and on the equipment and facilities belonging to the wind farm
• Overseeing and contribute to the interaction studies between the onshore converter and the other HVDC systems connected to the National Grid. Finally, the experts will be present during the acceptance tests for the equipment, the on-site testing and the commissioning
• Involved throughout the lifecyle of the HVDC installation, from the specification to the acceptance tests
• Supporting interaction studies between HVDC SOFIA link and nearby HVDC systems to de-risk SOFIA link integration in the network