Onshore Cabling Work for Denmark’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Starts

Wind Farm Update

April 15, 2024, by Adrijana Buljan

Work on the onshore cable route for RWE’s offshore wind farm Thor has started near the onshore substation located south of Lemvig, Denmark.

The activities, scheduled to be underway from mid-April until the end of October, are starting with horizontal directional drilling under the dune and a field immediately south of Tuskær. The landfall work, expected to be completed by the end of June, will enable two ducts to run under the dunes and the field to prepare for cable pull-in next year.

The onshore cables east of Torsmindevej will be divided into three phases each and will be laid and buried during June and July, and led to the onshore substation, where they will be connected. Joint bay, jointing and testing works will be carried out throughout July to October, RWE said in an update on 15 April.

The subsea export cables that will run from the offshore substation to shore will be installed and connected to the onshore cables in 2025.

RWE started construction on the onshore substation for the 1 GW Thor offshore wind farm in the municipality of Lemvig in May 2023.

The month before, RWE signed up a Jan De Nul-Hellenic Cables consortium for the supply and installation of the entire cable system for the 1 GW offshore wind farm.

Under the contract, Hellenic Cables and Jan De Nul will manufacture and install 60 kilometres of export cables on the 30-kilometre-long cable route from the offshore wind farm to shore, and approximately 200 kilometres of inter-array cables.

The two companies are also in charge of delivering and installing the onshore cables from the landfall to the onshore substation, delivered by Siemens Energy which is working with MT Højgaard Danmark on the civil engineering and construction work.

The offshore wind farm, located around 22 kilometres from Thorsminde on the west coast of Jutland, will feature Siemens Gamesa SG 14-236 DD wind turbines installed on monopile foundations. Of the 72 wind turbines at the Thor offshore wind farm, 40 will be equipped with recyclable rotor blades.

The production of the monopile foundations for RWE’s project started at the beginning of this year and the installation of Siemens Gamesa’s wind turbines at the offshore site is expected to start in 2026.

The 1 GW Thor is scheduled to enter full operation in 2027, when it will become Denmark’s largest offshore wind farm.