25-Year-Old Danish Offshore Wind Farm Gets Approval to Operate for 25 More Years

After approving the production permit extension for the Samsø offshore wind farm earlier this month, the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) has now granted extended permits to two more of Denmark’s oldest offshore wind farms, Middelgrunden and Nysted.

To support its decisions, the DEA has requested that the applicants for the production permit extensions deliver an impartial analysis of the remaining lifetime. After receiving the extensions, the owners are now obliged to carry out comprehensive annual service inspections.

The Middelgrunden offshore wind farm was built in 2000 and received its electricity production permit the same year, before full commissioning in March 2001. The DEA has now approved Middelgrunden to operate for 25 more years.

Back in 2021, its co-owner, the Danish utility company HOFOR, said that an analysis carried out by R&D Engineering had shown the offshore wind farm’s towers and foundations had “at least 30 good years left“.

The 40 MW Middelgrunden comprises 20 Siemens Gamesa B76/2000 wind turbines, each with 2 MW nameplate capacity, and is a community offshore wind farm, owned 50/50 by the Middelgrunden Wind Turbine Cooperative and HOFOR.

The Nysted offshore wind farm (also known as Rødsand I) went into operation in 2003 and has now obtained approval to run for ten more years.

The 161 MW offshore wind farm is owned by Ørsted, PensionDanmark and Stadtwerke Lübeck and now consists of 70 Siemens Gamesa SWT-2.3-82 wind turbines.

Back in 2022, one of the turbines at the Nysted site (turbine A02) collapsed. An investigation showed the cause to be a cracked and collapsed foundation. The Danish Energy Agency approved the decommissioning of the collapsed turbine in May 2022. In the summer that year, the turbine and a large part of the gravity foundation were removed.

The Danish Energy Agency’s approval of electricity production permit extensions for the two offshore wind farms follows the first such permit granted for the Samsø offshore wind farm at the beginning of June. The 23 MW Samsø will operate for ten more years.

The DEA received applications for lifetime extensions for five of its oldest offshore wind farms.

Besides Samsø, Middelgrunden, and Nysted, extensions are also sought for the 160 MW Horns Rev 1 (commissioned in 2002) and the 8 MW Rønland (commissioned in 2003).