Vietnam-made offshore wind substations exported to Europe for first time

Vietnam’s state-owned energy group Petrovietnam said its subsidiary PTSC Mechanical & Construction Co. Ltd. (PTSC M&C), together with its partners, had completed and begun transporting four offshore substations for the Baltica 2 wind farm off the coast of Poland.

Two of the substations are currently en route to Europe, while the other two have been loaded onto barges at PTSC Port and are ready to depart.

Baltica 2 is being jointly developed by Denmark’s Ørsted and Poland’s PGE in the Baltic Sea.

With a total capacity of around 1.5GW, the project will comprise 107 wind turbines and four offshore substations, each with a capacity of 375MW. The substations will receive electricity generated by the turbines and transmit it to shore.

Baltica 2 is expected to begin supplying electricity in the fourth quarter of 2027 and provide power for around 2.4 million Polish households.

The manufacture of the four substations in Vietnam marks a new step for PTSC M&C in the international offshore wind supply chain.

In June 2023, a consortium of Semco Maritime and PTSC M&C was given an engineering, procurement and construction, or EPC, contract for the four offshore substations.

The contract covers design, procurement, construction and commissioning, and includes four substations and four module support structures with a combined weight of around 16,000 tonnes.

PTSC M&C was responsible for fabrication, final assembly, and onshore commissioning in Vietnam.

Installation and connection work off the Polish coast is scheduled to begin in November.

Petrovietnam said PTSC M&C had to undergo capability assessments and meet stringent requirements on engineering, quality, safety, and schedule to participate in the project.

Building all four substations at the same time also required extensive coordination among production teams and technical systems.

The project was carried out while PTSC M&C’s fabrication facilities were simultaneously handling seven other large-scale projects.

At peak periods, more than 2,000 engineers and workers, along with subcontractors, were mobilized across the four structures.

One of the major technical challenges involved protective coatings.

Although the substations were fabricated in Vietnam’s tropical monsoon climate, their surfaces must withstand freezing temperatures and highly corrosive conditions in the Baltic Sea for decades.

Around 120,000 square meters of surface area were treated under controlled environmental conditions using dehumidification and ventilation systems and subject to strict inspection procedures.

PTSC M&C director To Ngoc Tu said Baltica 2 was particularly significant as it marked the first time offshore wind structures involving the company had been exported from Vietnam to Europe.

He said the project would help PTSC M&C standardize its EPC processes, strengthen its technical workforce and prepare for larger offshore wind projects in the future.