The construction of the 600MW Gemini offshore wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands has reached an important milestone after the farm’s first wind turbines started producing electricity and feeding it into the grid.
Following the construction of the electric infrastructure last year and the installation of the turbine foundations, contractors Siemens and Van Oord installed the farm’s first 4MW Siemens turbine on 16 February.
All of the 150 turbines are expected to be installed within the next few months. The wind turbines are transported directly from the port of Esbjerg in Denmark to the site, some 85 kilometers north of the Dutch province of Groningen.
The farm is expected to be completed in 2017 and will deliver energy for 785.000 households in the next decades.
Two 110-kilometer-long export cables will relay power from the wind farm to the shore. The energy generated will be distributed through the TenneT high voltage grid from Eemshaven.
“Generating its first power is obviously a huge milestone in the project, ” said Matthias Haag, CEO of Gemini.
“The actual delivery of sustainable electricity is a great reward following the dynamic building period we have had so far.”