McDermott held a first steel-cutting ceremony at its Jebel Ali fabrication yard in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to mark the commencement of construction for the BorWin6 980MW high-voltage, direct current  project for TenneT.

“We have successfully delivered engineering from our HVDC center of excellence in The Hague, and are on track to begin construction for this important offshore grid connection project,” said Vaseem Khan, McDermott’s Senior Vice President for Onshore. “During this next phase we will leverage our strategically located fabrication yards to drive execution excellence while maintaining our industry-leading safety record.”

Through a consortium with Global Energy Interconnection Research Institute Co., Ltd. and C-EPRI Electric Power Engineering Co., Ltd. (GEIRI / CEPRI), McDermott is providing engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning (EPCIC) services for an HVDC offshore converter platform, located offshore Germany. Electricity generated from offshore wind farms will be converted into direct current and transported to an onshore converter station located 146 miles (235 kilometers) onshore near Büttel, Germany. Here, the electricity is converted back into three-phase current and fed into the extra-high voltage grid.

Fabrication will be executed from McDermott’s fabrication yards in Dubai and Batam, Indonesia, which are both unrivalled in their ability to deliver complex offshore structures.

Building on the experiences of the BorWin6 project, McDermott was recently awarded an EPCIC contract by TenneT for two 2GW HVDC grid connection systems offshore Germany. It is the largest renewable project in McDermott’s growing energy transition portfolio and signifies its ongoing expansion into the thriving offshore wind market.