U.K. Tests Largest Offshore Wind Turbines

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- The U.K. has begun testing some of the world's largest offshore wind turbines at the Gunfleet Sands demonstration project.

Developed by Siemens Wind Energy (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany), the 6-megawatt (MW) turbines have almost twice the generating capacity of the largest offshore wind turbines in operation today. Two of the massive turbines have been successfully installed at Dong Energy's (Fredericia, Denmark) Gunfleet Sands project, almost 9 kilometres (km) off the English coast in waters measuring 13 meters deep. The turbines will be fired up this month for real-world testing and start producing their first electricity. The existing Gunfleet Sands windfarm, phases I and II, has a total generating capacity of 172 MW.

The SWT-6.0-154 has a rotor diameter of 154 meters, with blades measuring a record-breaking 75 metres, according to Siemens. Each 6 MW turbine can generate enough power for around 6,000 homes.

"With the new and almost twice as large wind turbines, we prospectively only need half the number of foundations and half the number of cables between the turbines compared to today," explained deputy CEO of DONG Energy, Wind Power, Morten Hultberg Buchgreitz. "Consequently the new wind turbines provide a solid contribution to making it cheaper to produce energy at sea."

He added: "If energy from offshore wind turbines in the future is to be considered a wholly competitive alternative to conventional power plants, the price and costs must be reduced. Therefore it is crucial that we, as for example at Gunfleet Sands, will be able to demonstrate the latest technology, which we at a later stage can implement in full scale on our projects".

Last July, Dong committed to buying 300 of the 6 MW turbines from Siemens to be used on a number of offshore projects currently underway in the U.K. The deal is estimated to be worth approximately €2.5 billion ($3 billion) and the turbines have a combined generating capacity of approximately 1,800 MW. They will be used at Dong projects including Lincs, London Array and West of Duddon Sands between 2014 and 2017. For additional information, see July 27, 2012, article - Dong Buys 300 Siemens' Turbines for U.K. Offshore.

Siemens began field testing of its new 154 metre rotor for the 6 MW wind turbine at an onshore location in Østerild, Denmark, last October. An earlier prototype of the 6 MW turbine using a 120 metre rotor started testing in May 2011 and has been running successfully since.

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