Parkwind’s first offshore wind farm outside Belgium, the 247 MW Arcadis Ost 1 in Germany, has started producing first electricity and feeding it into the grid after the first set of wind turbines were powered up.
The installation of wind turbines started in November 2022, when the crane vessel Thialf installed the first of the wind farm’s 27 Vestas V174-9.5 MW units at the project site in the Baltic Sea, northeast of the island of Rügen.
Offshore construction kicked off in June 2022 with the installation of the foundations and the substation, followed by cable laying work in August.
According to Parkwind’s press release from 17 January, the floating installation of wind turbines, cable termination and wind turbine commissioning continued “ensued in a seamless process” in full winter period.
Together with the transmission system operator (TSO) 50Hertz, Parkwind brought the first wind turbines online over the past few weeks, which started delivering power to the German grid on 12 January.
The 247 MW offshore wind farm is the first commercial project to use 9.5 MW Vestas turbine with a 174-metre rotor and is also the first project to employ a novel floating installation method for wind turbines.
Once fully commissioned later this year, the offshore wind farm is expected to provide enough electricity to cover the needs of up to 300,000 German households.