Equinor and Polenergia have awarded Hitachi Energy two contracts for their MFW Baltyk II and MFW Baltyk III offshore wind farms in Poland. The two wind projects, which are situated in the Polish region of the Baltic Sea, will receive AC grid connection and power quality solutions from the company. The aggregate capacity of these two wind farms is more than 1.4 GW. The wind turbines’ clean energy output will be received by the offshore grid connection and transmitted to the shore. The national transmission system will then receive the renewable energy via the mainland grid connection. The STATCOM power quality solution from Hitachi Energy is made to make sure that electricity constantly flows reliably and steadily, at maximum capacity.
In addition to helping Poland meet its goals for renewable energy, the grid connection and power quality solution provided by the company would also supply clean energy to more than two million homes. By 2027, the Polish government aims to have around 11 GW of offshore wind power online or in the planning stages. The two offshore wind facilities, MFW Baltyk II and MFW Baltyk III, are projected to start generating power in 2027 when a final investment decision is made, which is anticipated to be made in 2024. Hitachi’s front-end engineering and design (FEED) research, optimised solutions, and long-standing collaborations with Equinor, PSE, and Polenergia all played a role in its selection for the projects.
Earlier this month, Equinor and RWE decided to collaborate on creating offshore wind farms capable of producing green hydrogen in order to establish value chains for low-carbon hydrogen. In order to replace coal-fired power plants in Germany with gas-fired power plants that are still prepared to use hydrogen, the partners intended to build a low-carbon, renewable hydrogen production facility in Norway. This facility would export hydrogen to Germany via a pipeline. Equinor and RWE would jointly control the CCGTs, which would be first powered by natural gas before gradually switching to hydrogen as a fuel to run totally on hydrogen when the volumes and technology are available.
