First Turbine Up at Germany's Gode Offshore Windfarm

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The first turbine has been installed at one of Germany's leading offshore wind projects.

Engineering firm A2SEA (Fredericia, Denmark) has confirmed that its "Sea Challenger" jack-up vessel has installed the first 6-megawatt (MW) turbine at the Gode Wind Offshore windfarm, in the German part of the North Sea.

The turbine is the first of 97 from German engineering giant Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) that will be installed at the Gode windfarm scheme, which will have a total generating capacity of 582 MW. It is made up of the Gode Wind 1 (330-MW) and 2 (252-MW) windfarms, which will be able to supply enough power for approximately 600,000 German households. When commissioned, it will be the largest offshore wind complex in Germany.

"I am happy to be part of the team Sea Challenger (Siemens, DONG, A2SEA), and I would like to send many thanks to all the crew members," said Master Brian Bendixen, after the installation. "After end installation, Sea Challenger will return to Esbjerg on Tuesday night for retrofit of equipment before starting next load out."

The windfarms, which are being developed by Denmark's DONG Energy A/S (Fredericia, Denmark), should be completed by September 2016 and will cost just less than $1.4 billion to construct.

In February, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) outlined how Germany was in line to install twice the amount of offshore wind in 2015 than the U.K., which has been the world's leading offshore wind nation for the past number of years. Despite the U.K. having a record offshore year in 2014, the country had just three offshore projects due to finish in 2015, while Germany has eight. For additional information, see February 3, 2015, article - European Offshore Wind Dips in 2014.

Industrial Info reported in April that the European Commission (E.C.) had approved Germany's financial support for 20 new offshore windfarms. All of the projects are due to be commissioned by 2019 and represent €29.3 billion ($32.6 billion) in total investment. For additional information, see April 21, 2015, article - Europe Approves 20 German Offshore Windfarms.

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