will convert the electricity from 220 kilovolts to 380 kilovolts so that it can be transmitted further along the high voltage cables?’ From that early stage, principal contractor Van Oord, another Gemini shareholder, actively contributed ideas about the best solutions.
No example Like many parts of the offshore wind park (such as the platforms and the cables), the LHVS is engineered with many redundancies. Dennis explains: ‘The reliability of the system has to be top-level. For example, the air conditioning systems are built with duplicate components. The building is larger than necessary for the installation of the equipment. That way, we retain some flexibility for the future.’ As with many aspects that Gemini deals with, innovation was necessary here: ‘A land
THE GEMINI TEAM
tional requirements weren’t new, but their interpretation in terms of
Dennis Froeling
the specific technology of this large wind park was new. There were no
on building the land station At Gemini, a great deal of attention is paid to building the wind park offshore. But Dennis Froeling knows better than most that a lot of work also had to be done ‘on land’. He was the Package Manager Onshore Substation. In other words, he made sure that the electricity arrives on land safely and can flow into the Dutch power grid. An introduction.
Froeling joined the Gemini team in early 2014, ‘on loan’ from HVC, one of the project’s shareholders. His assignment: to construct the Land High Voltage Station (LHVS) in Eemshaven port. At HVC, he had supervised a number of projects in the field of process technology, often also in the civil engineering sphere. This is his first offshore project, but with an important onshore component: ensuring that the electricity generated offshore reaches the Tennet grid properly and safely and can interconnect with the grid. ‘I started working in close cooperation with our Electrical Package Manager, who is responsible for Gemini’s entire electricity chain. What are the technical requirements and which basic design suits them best? For example, how big are the transformers that
‘There was no example. We had to find it out for ourselves.’ 46
station like this had never been built before. In themselves, the func-
examples. We had to find everything out for ourselves.’