Siemens Energy has awarded a major contract to supply the second substation platform for the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm to McNulty Offshore Construction, based in South Shields, South Tyneside.
The multi-million pound project began in January this year and is expected to be completed in May 2010.
Specialising in offshore fabrication for the oil and gas industry, McNulty will be tasked with constructing an offshore substation to be housed within a platform, located 16 miles off the Suffolk coast, connecting to an onshore substation at Sizewell.
Generating enough electricity to power more than 415,000 homes, the Greater Gabbard development sports 140 wind turbines, which will effectively cut CO2 emissions by one million tonnes a year.
Siemens is supplying the 140 3.6MW wind turbines and also connecting the wind farm to the national grid. Siemens’ renewable energy project management team, based in Manchester, is driving the project. The team will be assisted by Siemens engineers based in Monkton, South Tyneside, who will be managing the engineering contract for the platform.
Worth a combined value of around €884m (£795m), Siemens was awarded the Greater Gabbard contract in June last year.
In October last year, Siemens awarded Heerema Hartlepool an Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract for the first Greater Gabbard offshore substation platform, the company’s first EPC in the UK offshore wind energy sector.
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