Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm Goes Full Throttle

Full power output has been achieved at Ørsted’s Race Bank offshore wind farm located off the North Norfolk coast in the UK.

Installation of the final wind turbine at Race Bank was completed in December 2017, and following successful completion of the 240-hour acceptance tests of all 91 turbines, and the 200-hour test of the full wind farm, the project is now capable of generating its full capacity of 573MW.

During the commissioning process of the final turbines, Race Bank also passed 1TWh of production since construction began.

One wind turbine generator was installed in just over 11 hours – a record for the company. The whole commissioning process has exceeded expectations, Ørsted said.

Race Bank uses Siemens Gamesa 6MW wind turbines and many of these turbines feature the first blades to be manufactured at the Siemens Gamesa blade factory in Hull.

Race Bank will be Ørsted’s first offshore wind farm to use a new Service Operation Vessel (SOV) for operations and maintenance (O&M). The SOV can remain out at sea with the O&M team for up to 28 days at a time, and will greatly improve the efficiency of maintaining the project, the company said.

A team based in Grimsby will be responsible for carrying out this O&M work for the lifetime of Race Bank.