World's Largest Offshore Wind Project to be Built in U.K.

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The world's largest offshore windfarm will be built by DONG Energy A/S (Fredericia, Denmark), which has made a final investment decision on the proposed 660-megawatt (MW) Walney Extension project on the U.K.'s west coast.

Located 19 kilometers (km) off the English west coast in the Irish Sea, the Walney Extension offshore windfarm will be able to generate 30 MW more than the London Array windfarm, also constructed by DONG and commissioned in 2012. London Array, off the Kent coast in England, boasts 175 turbines and has a total generating capacity of 630 MW, enough to power nearly half a million homes.

The new windfarm will boast less, but significantly more powerful, turbines from two different suppliers, Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany) and MHI Vestas Offshore Wind (Randers, Denmark). The project will use 40 turbines, each able to generate 8 MW, from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind and 47 Siemens 7-MW offshore turbines. The project is divided into two 330-MW phases, with the first expected to be commissioned in May 2018, followed by Phase II in June 2019. They will cost an estimated $3.3 billion to build.

"Walney Extension will deliver clean electricity to more than 460,000 UK homes and I'm very pleased that we can now start construction of what will be the world's biggest offshore wind farm when completed," said Samuel Leupold, executive vice president at DONG Energy. "Building this offshore wind farm will bring us significantly closer to realising our strategy of having 6.5GW of installed capacity online by 2020. "British offshore wind has seen phenomenal growth in recent years. A prerequisite for long term growth in the industry is, that offshore wind eventually can compete on costs with other energy technologies. Building Walney Extension will bring us one step closer to that target, and I'm satisfied to see that we keep bringing costs down, while continuing to expand the UK supply chain. I'm also excited about the fact that turbine blades, part of the foundations and cable installation will come from UK manufacturing facilities and vessels and create local jobs."

In January, Siemens broke ground on a giant wind turbine plant in the port of Hull. The $513 million Green Port Hull project will feature new project construction, assembly and service facilities at Green Port Hull and a new rotor blade manufacturing facility in nearby Paull, in the East Riding. For additional information, see January 27, 2015, article - Work on New U.K. Wind Turbine Plant Starts.

In 2013, DONG completed work on the first dedicated offshore wind turbine terminal in the U.K., or Ireland, at Belfast, in Northern Ireland. For additional information, see March 1, 2013, article - U.K. gets First Offshore Wind Terminal.

DONG Energy is Europe's leading offshore windfarm developer. It is currently constructing projects totaling 2,080 MW in the U.K. and Germany. When completed, they will push the company's total combined wind generation capacity to almost 5.1 gigawatts (GW).

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