Alstom Ready for Round 3 as their Offshore Wind experts head to London

Alstom showcase world’s largest offshore turbine and ground-breaking transmission technology at Renewable UK’s Global Offshore Wind Conference 2012 in London.

Offshore wind is one of the UK’s key growth industries. The country’s current installed offshore wind capacity is already greater than the rest of the world’s combined, with 538 turbines equaling 1.7GW in total - or roughly 2% of the UK’s installed power generation capacity. With the advent of the next round of offshore wind tenders – known as ‘Round 3’ - there is a further 45GW in the pipeline.

Such a market will require significant investment: over the last decade offshore wind energy has attracted £5 billion in investment in the UK and could exceed £50 billion by 2020 – and create upwards of 40,000 new jobs.

Alstom participates in the Renewable UK Global Offshore Wind event to highlight the role that its technologies could soon be delivering into this important market. We use the event to highlight the development of the world’s biggest offshore turbine – the Haliade™ 150–6MW, as well as our ground-breaking HVDC-VSC technology, engineered and manufactured at Alstom’s facilities Stafford. VSC, or Voltage Source Converter, technology connects off-shore wind farms to the grid with far fewer electrical losses – meaning greater return on investment for customers and more renewable energy entering the grid.

Alstom’s experts will also deliver two conference speaking slots - Daniel Castell, Offshore Wind Platform Director, with the presentation ‘Lessons learned from installing and commissioning the first offshore New Generation 6MW turbine”, and Frederic Hendrick, Alstom Vice President for Offshore Wind, will deliver a presentation on Alstom’s experiences with the French Offshore Wind tender. Alstom will also hold two Offshore Wind Leadership Lunch sessions for its closest customers and stakeholders – with plenty of opportunity for industry discussion and debate.

“We want the industry to know that we will be Ready for Round 3 – we have been providing technology and services for UK power generation for over 100 years and offshore wind is another area where we will play an important role” said Stephen Burgin, President of Alstom UK.