Converter stations act as power converters

The direct current connection A-North runs over 300 kilometres from Emden in Lower Saxony to Osterath in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is part of the first nationwide wind power corridor, which will transport electricity from the offshore wind farms in the North Sea southwards from 2027. Converter stations will be built at the end points to convert alternating current into direct current and vice versa. According to the transmission system operator Amprion, the converter in Emden-Petkum will be one of the most modern of its kind. In addition to converting electricity, it will also take over the task of regulating and stabilising the grid voltage from conventional large-scale power plants.

Existing customer Siemens can rely on high execution quality

The converter station has a positive pole as well as a negative pole, each consisting of two converters. Each converter is housed in an 18 metre high converter hall with a floor area of around 5,000^m2. The deep foundations for the halls, as well as various operating buildings and technical stations, are being laid using 15 to 16 metre long Fundex piles in various diameters. "The client, Siemens Energy, already knows us from previous projects. In the run-up to the contract award for the converter station in Emden, we were able to convince them with our experience in the production of slender full displacement piles as well as our excellent technical equipment," says Thomas Cramer, Branch Manager of the PORR Competence Centre for Foundation Technology in Oldenburg.

His team is working in familiar territory on the latest project. Only recently, two pile foundations were carried out virtually within sight of each other: firstly for a railway overpass on the new B210 and secondly for the modernisation of the Emden-Borssum substation, where atlas piles were installed at a limited height.