Faulty Towers Set World’s Largest Floating Offshore Wind Farm Back

The 11-turbine Hywind Tampen, the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm under construction, will be completed in 2023 and not by the end of 2022 as initially planned, Equinor said.

The first seven Siemens Gamesa 8.6 MW wind turbines will come on stream this year as planned. The final four will be installed next spring, according to Equinor, the developer of the project.

Siemens Gamesa is the supplier of towers, nacelles, and blades, all subject to rigid quality control measures, Equinor said.

Deviations in steel quality in four tower sections were found, and corrective actions were immediately implemented. The difficult market situation for steel has however delayed the delivery, Equinor said.

Siemens Gamesa is said to be working closely with its suppliers and Equinor to expedite all deliveries. The seven turbines already assembled have been thoroughly tested and meet all quality specifications.

Supply chain bottlenecks, most notably related to the global market for steel, preclude the delivery of the final four tower sections for the wind turbines until September 2022.

This will be too late in relation to the installation weather window for the year, postponing the installation of the remaining four turbines until next year, Equinor said.

”Seven turbines have been assembled and four are now installed on the field. The plan is to start production during the year and supply electricity first to Gullfaks, then to the Snorre field,” said project director Olav-Bernt Haga.

Once Hywind Tampen is completed, it will be the world’s largest floating wind farm and the first to supply electricity to oil and gas platforms. 

The wind farm has a system capacity of 88 MW and is expected to meet 35 per cent of the electrical power demand on the Gullfaks and Snorre fields.

The first seven turbines will deliver electricity to both Gullfaks and Snorre and have a capacity of about 60 MW, already making Hywind Tampen the world’s largest floating wind farm in operation.

The first power is expected in the third quarter of 2022.

Equinor is developing and will operate the wind farm on behalf of the partnerships which include Equinor Energy AS, Petoro AS, and OMV (Norge) AS for the Gulflaks license, and Equinor Energy AS, Petoro AS, Idemitsu Petroleum Norge AS, Wintershall Dea Norge AS, and Vår Energi AS for the Snorre license.

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