Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm ready for full power

Vattenfall’s Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm, off the Cumbria coast, readied itself for full power today as commissioning work was completed on the thirtieth turbine on the cutting edge scheme.

Credit: Ben Barden Photography/ Vattenfall

The European energy company said it was pleased with progress on the project and looked forward to the scheme generating at full power and exporting green electricity to the National Grid. Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm uses REpower 5M 5 megawatt (MW) wind turbines.

The completion of commissioning work coincided with today’s official inauguration of the onshore operations and maintenance base in the Port of Barrow.

Georg Friedrichs, Head of Offshore Wind Projects at Vattenfall, said: “Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm has been two-years in the making and we are pleased to have recently completed commissioning of the 30th and final wind turbine at the scheme. Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm gives a glimpse into the technological future of offshore wind development as it uses, at this large scale, the most powerful commercially available wind turbine in the world with foundations specially designed for deep water and heavier machines.”

He concluded: “I would like to thank all staff for their hard work on getting to this stage; everybody has done a fantastic job. It is also important to acknowledge the motivation and the hard work of the REpower team, along with principle contractor ode and Vattenfall colleagues, who have worked strenuously to commission the turbines since first power in summer.”

Vattenfall has been building the 30-turbine wind farm, 10 km off Barrow-in-Furness, for two years. The green energy scheme is capable of meeting the equivalent electricity demand of more than 100,000 thousand UK households every year.

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Notes to Editor

About Vattenfall

Vattenfall is a leading European energy company. It is Europe’s sixth largest generator of electricity and largest producer of heat. Its major customers are industrial plants, energy companies, municipalities, property companies and housing associations across northern Europe. Vattenfall currently operates 836MW of offshore wind capacity around Europe. It also operates 542MW of onshore wind across Europe, including Edinbane on the Isle of Skye.

About Vattenfall’s Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm

The Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm, located 10 kilometres off Barrow-in-Furness in the Irish Sea will include 30 wind turbines totalling 150MW of installed capacity capable of meeting the equivalent annual electricity demand of more than 100,000 UK households. Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm has been under construction since May last year with works offshore commencing May 2010. Installation of the wind turbines should be completed in the second half of 2011.

Vattenfall started works to lay the export cable which will carry green electricity from the wind farm to shore in January this year and in July last year it completed the installation of 31 foundations for the wind turbines.

About the REpower 5M

With a rated output of 5 megawatts and a rotor diameter of 126 meters, the 5M is one of the largest and most powerful wind energy turbines in the world. The rotor consists of three rotor blades, each one 61.5 metres in length, and covers the area of two soccer fields; the nacelle is the size of two houses. Two REpower 5M were commissioned in 2007 in the Beatrice demonstration test field in the UK. Six REpower 5M are also installed in the German test field alpha ventus, part owned by Vattenfall.

Project Facts

Source: http://www.vattenfall.co.uk

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