Vattenfall has commissioned all wind turbines at the offshore wind farm Vesterhav Syd in Denmark, which is now fully operational and feeding power into the Danish grid.
Vesterhav Syd (South) is part of Vattenfall’s 344 MW Vesterhav duo, whose Vesterhav Nord (North) wind farm the company expects to connect to the grid during the first quarter of this year.
With a capacity of 168 MW, Vesterhav Syd is capable of providing electricity to 170,000 Danish households.
“At Vattenfall, we are always happy when we finish an offshore wind farm and thereby contribute to fossil freedom. This time, we allow ourselves to be even more happy, since there is a cold winter in Denmark and Northern Europe where fossil-free and reliable electricity is of the essence,” said Mathilde Damsgaard , project director for Vesterhav Syd and Nord at Vattenfall.
The offshore wind farm, located close to the Sondervig coast, consists of 20 Siemens Gamesa 8.4 MW wind turbines and its sibling project, located west of the coast of Vejlbi, will have 21 turbines of the same type.
The wind turbine installation at Vesterhav Syd started in July 2023 and was completed in September last year, however, Vattenfall needed to change its plan to connect the turbines to the grid immediately as the export cables initially could not be buried deep enough. The project also encountered tough weather conditions that slowed down the offshore construction progress.
In November 2023, Vattenfall announced the offshore wind farm produced first power after the issue with burying the export cables was resolved after the developer’s contractor changed methods and tools to get the cables safely buried.
The developer says this milestone on Vesterhav Syd is the culmination of almost seven years of work on the offshore wind farm.
Vattenfall won the tender for Vesterhav Syd and Nord in 2016 with a strike price of DKK 475/MWh (around EUR 63.7/MWh).
The Danish Energy Agency approved the construction of the two projects in December 2020 and granted Vattenfall an electricity production permit for the 344 MW Vesterhav duo in Summer 2023.