Chinese state-owned company Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries (ZPMC) has shipped the Haifeng Heart, what it describes as the world’s largest offshore converter station, for installation off the coast of Guangdong Province.
The platform departed from Nantong in Jiangsu Province and will be installed near Yangjiang to support the Three Gorges Yangjiang Qingzhou V and Qingzhou VII offshore wind farms.
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Once operational, Haifeng Heart is expected to supply approximately six billion kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity annually, contributing to China’s efforts to expand offshore wind power and reduce carbon emissions.
The station is designed to support a centralised subsea cable transmission project between the wind farms.
According to ZPMC, the converter station features a single-unit capacity of 2GW and employs a high level of equipment integration.
It will operate using flexible direct current (DC) technology at a voltage of ±500kV and combines both alternating current (AC) and DC transmission for coordinated offshore power delivery. In addition, it marks the first use of ±525kV DC subsea cables in this context.
The Haifeng Heart platform consists of an eight-storey steel structure measuring approximately 85.5m in length, 82.5m in width and 44m in height, with a total weight close to 25,000t.
ZPMC constructed it using modular fabrication with parallel onshore assembly and equipment integration.
Yan Bing, senior specialist at ZPMC, said the company used an integrated construction model of “onshore assembly, transport as a single unit, and float-over installation”, aimed at improving efficiency and execution quality.
Offshore converter stations such as Haifeng Heart convert AC from wind turbines into DC for transmission, reducing losses over the long distances necessary to reach the mainland. This enables access to wind resources located more than 100km from shore.
