MIDEL transformer oil used in France’s first subsea tidal power plant

2015-7-9 Manufacturing.net

 France, Brittany: France’s first subsea tidal power plant built by GE Power Conversion for Electricité de France (EDF) near Paimpol-Brehat, Brittany, will be completed at the end of 2015.

The plant consists of two huge turbines generating electricity, and a subsea converter ("the yellow submarine"). The generated current will flow into the converter through the enclosure filled with special transformer oil produced by Midel, the custom-designed ester-based fluid to protect the environment in case of a leak, reports Manufacturing.net.

The subsea converter holds sophisticated technology that can independently control the speed of each turbine, transform their variable AC voltages to a high DC voltage, and reduce losses along the 16 km subsea cable.

When completed, the tidal plant sitting 35 metres below the sea level and 16 kilometres off the coast, will generate 1 MW of renewable power and feed it through a 16-kilometre-long underwater cable to the local grid.