World's first offshore Reactive Compensation Station installed for Hornsea Project One

The first ever offshore Reactive Compensation Station (RCS) has just been installed off the Yorkshire Coast. 
 
It weighs around 4000 tonnes and is part of what will become the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One. 
 
The site is located 120km from the Yorkshire Coast, which is the furthest distance from shore that any offshore windfarm has been constructed to date. 
It will consist of 174 wind turbines, three offshore substations and due to the longer cable lengths, a Reactive Compensation Station (RCS). 
The offshore substations convert the clean electricity from the wind turbines’ medium voltage cables to high voltage, so it can be exported with fewer losses. The electricity is then transferred via the RCS, which is around half way between the site and the shore, to the National Grid. 
 
Having the RCS enables transmission with High Voltage Alternating Current through much longer cables than would otherwise be possible.  
 
It is made up of a jacket foundation and a topside which weigh 1500 tonnes and 2500 tonnes respectively, and is the first ever RCS to be installed offshore, in the world. 
 
The installation of the first ever offshore RCS was completed at around 23:30 on 25 June 2018. 
 
Biggest, furthest, first… 

• When completed in 2020 Hornsea Project One will be the biggest offshore wind farm in the world, capable of supplying electricity to well over one million homes
• The current world’s largest offshore wind farm is London Array, 630MW, which will be over taken by Ørsted’s Walney Extension (660MW) later this year. Hornsea Project One will have a capacity of nearly double that 1.2GW – and will be the first wind farm ever with a capacity above 1GW.
• Hornsea Project One is being constructed further from shore than any other wind farm to date
• Ørsted, the developer and owner of Hornsea Project One, is the global leader in offshore wind.
• Although RCSs have been used onshore – this is the first ever RCS to be installed offshore in the world