The last of the 35 turbines was lifted into position by A2SEA’s specialist jack-up vessel Sea Challenger at the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm on Friday, March 27.
Westermost Rough, located off the UK’s East Coast, is the first offshore wind farm to make commercial use of the Siemens 6MW wind turbine. The wind farm is a joint venture between DONG Energy (50%) and its partners Marubeni Corporation (25%) and the UK Green Investment Bank (25%).
Duncan Clark, Programme Director for Westermost Rough at DONG Energy , said: “This is a significant milestone for the project in which all the partners involved are breaking new ground for the industry by offshore deployment of 6MW turbines. It is also an important step in reducing the cost of energy from offshore wind.”
He added: “Over 900 people have been employed on the offshore construction programme, and reaching installation of the final turbine with high levels of safety performance is a credit to their great teamwork.
“Our focus is now fully directed to safely finishing the commissioning work on the rest of the turbines, ensuring that they are all delivering clean, green energy to the UK grid this summer.”
Construction of the wind farm is being managed from DONG Energy’s office in the Fish Dock, Grimsby on Britain’s east coast, by a team of around 50 people. A permanent home for the wind farm’s operations and maintenance team has also been built at the Royal Dock in Grimsby.
When fully operational, Westermost Rough will be capable of generating up to 210 megawatts (MW) of electricity – enough capacity to meet the annual electricity demands of over 150,000 UK homes.
Image: A2SEA