Prysmian selected for power transmission

Prysmian, a worldwide leading player in the energy and telecomcables industry, has been awarded a major project worth €200m by the German transmission system operator transpower - a subsidiary of the Dutch grid operator TenneT. The contract is for the grid connection project BorWin2 linking two offshore wind farms in the North Sea to mainland Germany. Prysmian will provide complete supply, installation and commissioning of the submarine and land cable connections as part of a larger contract worth more than half a billion Euros, awarded to the consortium between Prysmian and Siemens Energy. Siemens will deliver the Voltage Sourced Converter (VSC) system, with an accordant capacity of 800 MW. The turnkey connection will link the Offshore Wind Parks Veja Mate and Global Tech 1, located 125 km offshore, to the mainland with the purpose of transmitting wind generated renewable power into the German Grid. The project sets a number of milestones in the industry as it will be the first commercial ± 300 kV DC cable project using extruded technology (highest direct current voltage level ever reached), and the first 800 MW connection to offshore wind parks.

Nexans in €72.7m cable win

Nexans, a worldwide leader in the cable industry, has been awarded a €72.7m contract by the Abu Dhabi Transmission and Despatch Company (TRANSCO) for a turnkey project to upgrade the high voltage underground power cable infrastructure in Abu Dhabi City, UAE. The project for TRANSCO, a subsidiary of ADWEA (Abu Dhabi Water & Electricity Authority), will involve the design, manufacture, supply, installation and commissioning of 210 km of 132 kV XLPE (cross linked polyethylene) underground power cables. Single-phase cables will have copper cross-sections of 800, 1000 and 1200 mm2.

"This latest contract for TRANSCO reinforces Nexans' position as a key supplier for high voltage power infrastructure projects in the Gulf region" says Dirk Steinbrink, Managing Director of Nexans Land High Voltage Business Group.

"Our presence in Abu Dhabi goes back to the 1970s, and we have recently completed two major projects for ADWEA including a 400 kV underground link and a 132 kV submarine link to Delma Island".

The TRANSCO cables will be manufactured at the Nexans facilities in Belgium and Switzerland and should be supplied and installed over an 18-month period, starting late 2010.

GDF Suez consortium to develop $1.8bn Barka, Sohar power projects

A consortium led by France's GDF Suez has won the right to build a pair of gas fired power projects at a combined estimated cost of $1.8bn. At roughly 744 MW apiece, the two schemes will rank among the largest greenfield power projects to be developed in the Sultanate. GDF Suez led a field of three consortiums that were shortlisted in a keenly contested international competitive bid for the two Independent Power Projects (IPPs), known as Barka III and Sohar II.

Bowman Power’s new turbogenerator award

The UK-based Bowman Power Group has won the 2010 European New Product Innovation Award from Frost & Sullivan.

The award was for the development of electrical turbogenerators which convert exhaust gases from engines into useful energy. Although developed primarily for the commercial automotive sector, Bowman has also been working with several generator manufacturers and packagers in order to offer the best efficiency through its products.

In an industry which is challenged by emission and fuel consumption regulations, there is constant need for innovative and affordable technologies to tackle toxic emissions, says Frost & Sullivan.

It later added that the efficiency of the electrical turbogenerators from Bowman Power is far higher than that of the mechanical ones from its competitors.

"While Bowman Power's competitors have introduced mechanical turbocompounding that convert the exhaust gas into mechanical energy that is fed back to the crankshaft, the exhaust heat recovery system from Bowman Power is unique in its ability to convert some of the heat energy from exhaust gases into useful electrical energy," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst, Arif Basheer.

"Running the turbogenerator at controlled speeds, which is one of Bowman's pending patents, optimises the efficiency across a wider range of engine conditions and delivers significantly higher fuel efficiency. This is the key advantage it has over the mechanical turbogenerators from its competitors."