“The first wind turbines are standing,” said Klaus Horstick, Managing Director of Trianel Windkraftwerk Borkum GmbH & Co. KG, thus marking a major milestone in 200MW Borkum West 2 offshore wind farm development.
The installation of the first wind turbine, out of a total of 40, was completed over the weekend by the jack-up MPI Adventure. Two other AREVA M5000 turbines are scheduled to be fully completed by the end of the week. The commissioning of the wind farm is scheduled for the end of 2013.
Horstick said: “We are progressing toward the finish line step by step. If all goes to plan, the early turbines will begin feeding into the grid this autumn and we will enter commercial operation before the turn of the year.”
Michael Mund-Oschimek, CEO of AREVA Wind said that the installation of the first 148-metre turbine was completed in the rough sea conditions of the North Sea without a single incident.
Due to the continuous delays of the grid connection, schedule for the wind farm construction had already been postponed for about a year.
Now, the grid operator TenneT is expected to complete the network connection via offshore converter station DolWin1 in the fourth quarter.
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Offshore WIND staff, July 30, 2013; Image: trianel