One of the largest wind farms under construction in Europe has taken a step further to completion after the first of the wind farm’s 160 turbines was installed on the 16th May. The €2billion wind farm being built by RWE npower renewables will be able to generate enough energy to power around a third of the total number of households in Wales once it is completed.
The wind turbine, a 3.6MW Siemens model, was installed more than eight miles off the North Wales coast in Liverpool Bay using a SeaJack vessel. The operation is being conducted from the Port of Mostyn in Flintshire which has been specially developed to accommodate the construction of the wind farm. The port will also become a long term operations and maintenance base for the wind farm thereby creating over 100 jobs once the project is completed in 2014.
“We’re very pleased to be able to mark such a significant milestone in the construction of our flagship Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm, the largest renewables project under construction in the RWE portfolio” said Gwynt y Môr Project Director, Toby Edmonds. “Energy generation from our own domestic, limitless and renewable sources has been demonstrated to be of such importance to Wales and the UK’s future
energy security, and Gwynt y Môr’s turbines will soon begin to make a significant contribution to that generation capacity.”
Mr Edmonds explained that each turbine consists of a tower in two sections, a nacelle, a hub and three blades and takes approximately 24 hours to install. The SeaJack can carry three sets of components at any one time and is scheduled to return to port every nine days to pick up more components. A second jack up vessel called the SeaWorker will arrive later in the summer.
Gwynt y Môr is a shared investment between RWE Innogy, Stadtwerke München GmbH and Siemens and once completed will supply enough electricity for the average annual needs of around 400,000 homes. Siemens is manufacturing the turbines at is factory in Brande, Denmark.
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