The team behind the West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm are celebrating the successful installation of the final turbine at the 389MW project. The 108th turbine was recently hoisted into position by the Sea Installer.
John Hill, Project Director for West of Duddon Sands at DONG Energy said:
“We’re delighted to have reached this huge milestone at this project, and it is a testament to the great work of the West of Duddon Sands teams in Barrow and Belfast that this final installation has gone so smoothly. There has been a lot of hard work from everyone on the project to get to this point.
Now our focus turns to finishing the commissioning work on the rest of the turbines, getting them up and running and delivering power to the UK grid.”
Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables Project Director, said:
“It is a fantastic achievement to complete turbine installation on West of Duddon Sands. We faced some very challenging conditions, including one of the stormiest winters in recent history, but managed to continue working on schedule. Over 1,000 people have been employed on this project, and everyone has worked incredibly hard help us reach this milestone. We look forward to fully completing the project by the end of the year.”
Commissioning work is well underway and is expected to be finished by the end of the year. The West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm is being run from a dedicated £4m operations and maintenance base in Barrow-in-Furness. The offshore wind farm is a 50/50 joint venture between DONG Energy and ScottishPower Renewables.
Offshore work of foundation and turbine installation was carried out by two of the world’s most advanced installation vessels working in tandem: Swire Blue Ocean’s Pacific Orca and the Sea Installer – owned by A2SEA. Siemens are supplying and commissioning the 3.6MW turbines.
Notes to editors
For more information, please contact:
Alan Price, DONG Energy 020 7811 5208
alapr@dongenergy.co.uk
Paul Ferguson, ScottishPower Renewables 0141 614 4535 / 07702 665 924
About DONG Energy
DONG Energy is one of the leading energy groups in Northern Europe. Our business is based on procuring, producing, distributing and trading in energy and related products in Northern Europe. DONG Energy has around 6,500 employees and is headquartered in Denmark. The Group generated DKK 73 billion (EUR 9.8 billion) in revenue in 2013. For further information, see www.dongenergy.co.uk
About ScottishPower Renewables
ScottishPower Renewables is part of Iberdrola, the largest wind power company in the world. Its global offshore wind power headquarters are based in Glasgow. ScottishPower Renewables was the first developer in the UK to achieve one gigawatt (GW) of electricity production capacity from wind power.