Nordsee Ost Annual Turbine Maintenance Done Ahead of Schedule

Annual maintenance of the wind turbines at the Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm in Germany, which was planned to take eight weeks, has been completed two weeks earlier.

A total of 75 wind turbine technicians have finished the inspection and repair campaign on all 48 Senvion 6 MW units, installed some 35 kilometres north of Helgoland, within six weeks, according to RWE.

For the campaign, which included inspection of both the electrical and mechanical components, the technicians came from Cuxhaven to the wind farm on board the offshore service vessel Stril Server, after submitting proof of a negative coronavirus test.

“For the first time, we carried out the entire annual maintenance of the turbines at our Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm ourselves – and we have done that under the difficult conditions of the corona pandemic. It makes me all the more proud that our team on Helgoland, together with our service provider Rosch Industrieservice, completed this maintenance campaign successfully and well ahead of schedule”, said Enrico Schäfer, who is responsible for the operation of the offshore wind farms in continental Europe at RWE Renewables.

Work was carried out in shifts around the clock and on up to three wind turbines at the same time. An individual service team was always at the wind farm, with each team being there for two weeks and then leaving for another maintenance crew to take over the work.

According to the wind farm owner and operator, work on one turbine took around 48 hours on average.

The company added that, as part of a proactive maintenance concept, other components of the Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm are also being subjected to inspection and maintenance, including the foundations and the substation.

The 295 MW Nordsee-Ost was fully commissioned in May 2015.

The wind farm can provide enough electricity to cover the needs of some 320,000 average German households.