Wind turbines are being progressively taken
into operation
The
Global Tech I Offshore Wind GmbH
project company has reorganised its management team. As planned to coincide
with completion of the wind farm’s construction, Arjen Schampers ended
his term as technical director at the beginning of November. In accordance
with his expressed wishes, Schampers was solely engaged by the project
company to oversee the construction stage of the North Sea power plant.
Dr. Jan Podbielski, until now the overall project manager for installation
and commissioning, was appointed technical director by the shareholders
with responsibility of completing the commissioning phase of the North
Sea wind farm. At the same time, Detlef Schmeer was appointed technical
director in charge of operations. Schmeer has acted in an advisory capacity
for development of the operational organisation at
Global Tech I since April 2014
and will now take charge of the future operation of the wind farm as technical
director. To support commissioning of the remaining turbines and to ensure
the power plant will operate reliably, the transformer substation situated
within the wind farm is manned by up to 38 technicians around the clock.
The operational control centre of the wind farm is located at the company’s
headquarters in Hamburg. Hendrik Steindam continues without change as CFO
of the North Sea wind farm.
Technical Managing Directors
Detlef Schmeer and Jan Podbielski (from left to right)
.jpg)
TenneT, the grid operator responsible for
the connection to the German power grid, has intermittently linked the
wind farm to its offshore converter station BorWin beta during the testing
phase since the beginning of September. At present TenneT is testing the
grid connection and is carrying out its concluding work on the connection.
In parallel, final commissioning of the Global Tech I turbines is being
carried out, which requires a stable power connection. At the beginning
of 2015 the regular grid connection should be available. As soon as Global
Tech I is fully operational, it will supply the equivalent of 445,000 households
with environmentally friendly electricity.
Brief background of Dr. Jan Podbielski,
technical director (for commissioning)
After completing his physics doctorate and
three years at a technical consultancy firm, Dr. Jan Podbielski joined
the Global
Tech I project company in autumn
2010 to supervise project certification of the North Sea wind farm. Since
early 2011 the 37-year old was given charge of the turbines subproject
until he was promoted during the construction phase in June 2013 to overall
project manager and in close cooperation with the technical director he
has overseen installation and the interface to commissioning of the power
plant.
Brief background of Detlef Schmeer, technical
director (for operation)
Detlef Schmeer, graduate engineer in mechanical
engineering, brings with him many years and comprehensive experience from
technical management positions with maintenance, repair and technical services
for power plants in the electrical generating industry. The 50-year old
has been active in the offshore wind power industry since 2008. Until 2012
he worked on the manufacturer side with Nordex in a leading position with
responsibilities that included global supplier development and quality
assurance. Since then Detlef Schmeer has worked in offshore wind power
on the operations side and as a consultant, responsible for developing
the operational organisation of offshore wind farms with their processes,
structures and IT systems.
Global Tech I is one of the first offshore wind
farms being built in the German North Sea. Comprised of 80 wind turbines
– each with a capacity of 5 megawatts – the wind farm will have an installed
total capacity of 400 megawatts. This will provide usable electricity generated
from environmentally friendly wind energy amounting to more than 1.4 billion
kilowatt hours per year. The roughly 41 square kilometre area of Global
Tech I is located approximately 180 kilometres
northwest of Bremerhaven. The wind farm is being built in the German Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ), outside marine protection areas. Germany’s Federal
Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) granted its approval for the 80
wind turbines and the associated transformer station as early as 2006.
Construction began in August 2012. Once Global Tech I is fully operational
it will supply sufficient environmentally friendly electricity to power
an equivalent of 445,000 households with an average power demand of 3,130
kilowatt hours per year. For further information see http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/global-tech-i-germany-de09.html
Global Tech I Offshore Wind GmbH is the project
company that will build and operate the offshore wind farm Global Tech
I. The company's shareholders are the two energy suppliers Stadtwerke München
GmbH and HSE AG (Darmstadt), Axpo International S.A., Esportes Offshore
Beteiligungs GmbH and the two project development companies Norderland
Projekt GmbH and Windreich, as well as FC Wind 1 GmbH, FC Wind 2 GmbH,
GTU I GmbH and GTU II GmbH (information according to the excerpt from the
commercial register, 31.7.2013).
