Siemens to supply 36MW German community project

GERMANY: Siemens has won a contract to supply turbines with a capacity of 36MW for a community-owned wind farm in Germany.

by Patrick Smith 15 July 2014

Siemens will install its 3MW direct-drive turbine at the project

The manufacturer will supply 12 SWT 3.0-113 direct-drive turbines to the Süderlügum project in Schleswig-Holstein.

Installation of the turbines will begin in late 2014. Siemens will also provide operations and maintenance services for the 3MW machines for 20 years.

As well as generating power, the turbines will be used as phase-shifting VAR compensators. This means that they will help solve a technical problem with the alternating current voltage grid resulting from industrial customers drawing large amounts of energy, disrupting supply frequency.

This can cause the power cables to overheat, which can be corrected by the turbines through a counteracting of the frequency shift to stabilise the grid. The project can charge for this service and thus increase revenues.