Published Monday, 13 August 2012
The company has constructed a 1''500 tonne platform. (© UTV)
The company has constructed a 1'500 tonne platform for the off shore wind industry which could be the first of many orders of this kind for them.
Harland and Wolff's latest offering is set to leave Belfast Lough on Monday evening bound for a wind-farm off Liverpool. Towed by an ocean going tug, it will be progressing towards the coast of England at around 5mph.
A mega transformer, the substation and its sister will gather up on site power generated by 160 wind turbines in Liverpool Bay and route it ashore into the national grid.
The substations have been produced by Siemens in conjunction with Harland and Wolff on behalf of power firm RWE.
It represents another step forward for Harland and Wolff as it develops its expertise in the renewable energy industry.
Matthew Knight, of Siemens Energy, told UTV that they are doing something that has never been done in the world before.
"We are creating electricity sub stations out in the sea. Each one of these two platforms has two giant transformers, each over 150 tonnes and they convert electricity from a high voltage to a much higher voltage to send it to the shore in an efficient way."
David McVeigh, of Harland and Wolff, said the project is significant in introducing their work to a much wider market.
"There are dozens required of these structures locally within the Irish sea and then in the longer term maybe hundreds in the European market."