ABB has won a contract worth around $25 million from the electrical transmission system operator RTE France to supply transformer products and services for grid connections for ongoing French offshore wind power projects.
ABB will supply nine 400-megavolt ampere (MVA) booster transformers to help regulate the voltage of power transmitted from four large-scale offshore wind projects being built at various points along the Atlantic coast of France. Deliveries are scheduled from 2017 to 2020.
The offshore wind plants are each in the 500-megawatt (MW) capacity range, and part of the French government’s plan to add 6,000 MW of offshore generation capacity by 2020.
The energy produced would represent 3.5 percent of the country’s national energy consumption, while the overall goal is for 23 percent of France’s energy to come from a mix of renewable energy sources by 2020.