WIND FARM UPDATE

 North Irish Sea Array

Sustainable energy company Oriel Windfarm Ltd. and renewable energy group Gaelectric Holdings plc have signed a MoU for the joint development of the North Irish Sea Array (NISA) offshore wind project in the north Irish Sea.

NISA is located on the east coast of the Republic of Irelnad in relatively shallow waters with favourable sea bed conditions. The wind farm has a potential of 870MW. It will be the first larger offshore wind farm project to be built in the Irish Sea since over 10 years, following Arklow Bank. It will also be a step further in exploiting the Irish Sea’s offshore wind potential which was stated to be around 10GW in the Government’s Offshore Renewable Energy Development Plan, published in 2014. The project will create 150 jobs of which 30 will be permanent.

The companies will first start with a €80m 15MW demonstration project where new technologies in foundations, turbines and cables can be tested under real operational conditions. It will also be the basis for the larger project.

Amrumbank

Amrumbank West, which is located 35km north of the island of Helgoland in the German North Sea, has started producing power since the end of April. Installation of the turbines by the jack-up vessel MPI Adventure is ongoing. The wind farm will have Siemens 3.6MW turbines installed in an area covering 32km2. The installation activities are expected to be completed this Autumn. In the meantime, in June the grouting activities on all monopole foundations by ITW had been completed. The offshore substation which will connect the wind farm to the national grid at Busum, has been installed at the start of May.

When fully operational the wind farm will generate enough electricity to provide 300,000 households in their annual electricity consumption. The operation of the wind farm will be performed from an O&M base on Helgoland which was recently completed.

Gode Wind 1 & 2

The 2 substations for the 582MW Gode Wind 1 and 2 projects have been successfully installed at the wind farm site, around 33km off the islands of Juist and Norderney in water depths of around 33m. It was the first time DONG Energy is installing 2 offshore substations. The platforms were built by a joint venture of Cofely Fabricom and Iemants at the Hoboken, Belgium production facility. The cable installation has also begun in the first half of June when CT Offshore’s cable laying vessel SIA installed the first cable.

Gode Wind 1 (330MW) and 2 (252MW) will have 97 Siemens 6MW turbines on monopile foundations. Bladt Industries is responsible for the foundations. The turbines will be installed by A2SEA’s vessel SEA INSTALLER. The wind farm is planned to be fully operational in 2016, generating electricity for around 600,000 German households.

Merkur Offshore

In June DEME Concessions Wind nv and the Windreich Group of companies announced the close of a joint venture between DEME Concessions Wind and Windreich, named into Merkur Offshore GmbH. The project rights for the German offshore wind farm MEG I, located 45km north of Borkum, were transferred into Merkur Offshore GmbH. The wind farm was renamed Merkur Offshore. The new joint venture will be responsible for building and operating the wind farm.

The announcement was shortly followed by a new announcement from the new joint venture that they had signed a Turbine Supply Agreement with Alstom and a Balance of Plant Contract with DEME.

Alstom will supply 66 of its Alstom Haliade 150-6MW direct-drive turbines. The turbines will be manufactured in Alstom’s new production facility in Saint Nazaire and installed by GeoSea, a member of the DEME group.

Merkur Offshore has passed all authorisations and has a secured grid connection. The construction will start in 2016. Once in operation Alstom will service the wind farm under a long term service and maintenance contract.