Siemens Tops 1GW in Turbines Installed off German Coasts

Siemens has supplied, installed and commissioned 80 wind turbines for the 288-megawatt DanTysk offshore wind farm, which was officially inaugurated yesterday. The installed capacity of all Siemens wind turbines in German waters is now more than 1 gigawatt.

Copyright: Vattenfall

Around 300 wind turbines installed across eight projects contribute to this milestone, the company said.

In addition to this, Siemens has orders in hand for 700 more wind turbines to be erected off Germany’s North Sea and Baltic Sea coastlines, which will add over 2.8 gigawatts of clean offshore wind generated output to the existing capacity.

The industry association VDMA (German Engineering Association) expects up to two gigawatts more offshore wind power will come on line in 2015. Experts in Germany envisage in total about 3 gigawatts of installed capacity on the grid by the end of 2015. Michael Hannibal, Offshore CEO of Siemens’ Wind Power and Renewables Division, added: “Germany’s energy transition is thus also taking shape far out to sea.”

Hannibal added that the company is working ceaselessly to lower the costs of offshore wind power. To reach this goal, Siemens has introduced an advancement to its 6-megawatt turbine series, designed for 7-megawatt output, which will be capable of harnessing almost ten percent greater energy yield per year than its predecessor model. Series production of these new units is scheduled to begin in 2017.

Also, the company is working on improving grid connections with a smaller grid connection solution based on alternating current (AC) technology, which can replace the high-voltage alternating-current (AC) transformer platforms used to date mainly for near-shore installations.

Furthermore, Siemens’ new types of purpose-built ships called Service Operation Vessels (SOV) form part of the logistics infrastructure ensuring more efficient maintenance operations and thereby significantly benefiting the availability of offshore wind turbines.

Hannibal said: “We want to have technologies available already by 2020 which, together with improvements to turbine foundations, will make it possible to drive power generating costs from offshore wind down below 10 euro-cents per kilowatt-hour.”

German Government aims to increase renewable energy share to 80 percent by 2050. Use of offshore wind farms is an essential prerequisite to achieving this goal by cost-efficient means, Siemens said. Strong winds at sea can be harvested and power plants at sea are capable of drawing level with the electrical generating capacity of fossil-fuel power plants.

According to the Government’s plans, wind turbines delivering a total installed capacity of 6.5 gigawatts (GW) are to be installed in German waters by 2020, with 8.5 GW more to be added by 2030.

Image: Vattenfall