First Turbine In At German Offshore Windfarm

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) - The first turbine has been erected at one of Germany's largest planned offshore windfarms in the German North Sea.

Developer, E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Dusseldorf, Germany), confirmed that the first of 80 turbines is now in place at the Amrumbank West windfarm, located 35 kilometers to the north of the island of Helgoland. The 3.6 megawatt (MW) turbine manufactured by Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) is 90 metres above water level while the rotor diameter is 120 meters. When completed this summer, the windfarm will generate a total of 288 MW of electricity, displacing the equivalent of 740,000 metric tons of carbon emissions annually. It will provide enough power for approximately 300,000 households.

Amrumbank West covers an area of more than 32 square kilometers and will cost €1 billion ($1.3 billion) to construct. Commissioning work on the transformer substation for the windfarm is currently underway.

Construction work started on the windfarm just over a year ago. For additional information, see January 28, 2014, article - Work Starts at German Amrumbank Offshore Windfarm.

"We are confident that we will soon be able to feed electricity generated by the first turbines into the public grid as planned," said Dominik Schwegmann, lead project manager of Amrumbank West.

E.ON said that carrier vessels have transported the components of seven turbines from the Port of Esbjerg in Denmark to the deep-sea construction site at Amrumbank West. In an effort to cut the transit times from the base ports of Esbjerg, Helgoland or Cuxhaven to the site a hotel ship has been chartered so that workers can operate for 14-day shifts at sea.

A key component to the project and other offshore windfarms planned for the German North Sea has been the creation of an 'offshore wind island' at Helgoland along with partners RWE Innogy (Essen, Germany) and WindMW GmbH (Bremerhaven, Germany). Large scale service and maintenance facilities have been built to service three windfarms with a combined generating capacity of 871 MW: RWE's Nordsee Ost (295 MW), E.ON's Amrumbank West (288 MW) and the Süd and Meerwind Ost (288 MW), which is being built by WindMW. RWE opened its service and maintenance operations there last September. For additional information, see September 18, 2014, article - Germany Opens 'Offshore Wind Island'.

Germany is set to outpace long-time offshore wind leader the U.K. this year in terms of completed offshore projects. Last week, first power was generated at another new German offshore windfarm, Borkum West II, located 45km off Borkum Island. Owner Trianel Energie GmbH (Aachen, Germany) said the first turbine at the 200 MW project has been grid-connected and the plant will be fully commissioned this summer. For additional information, see February 11, 2015, article - Borkum West Generates First Offshore Power.

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