The first of 108 Siemens 3.6MW turbines has been successfully installed at the West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm, a 50/50 joint venture between DONG Energy and ScottishPower Renewables.
Following the recent milestone of hitting the halfway mark on foundation installation, on Thursday 27th September the West of Duddon Sands team completed installation of the first turbine in the 389MW project. Over the coming months, 107 further turbines will be installed by the Sea Installer and Pacific Orca, with the wind farm expected to be fully completed in 2014.
Henrik Scheinemann, Vice President in DONG Energy’s Wind Power business said:
“We’re very pleased to see the first turbine installed at this project, and it is a testament to the great work of the entire West of Duddon Sands teams that this first installation has gone so smoothly.
This project is very important for DONG Energy; it is our eighth wind farm in the UK and when completed will take us past the mark of 2,4GW of constructed capacity, well on the way to reaching our target of 6.5GW by 2020.
Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables Project Director, said:
“This is another major milestone for the West of Duddon Sands project, and testament to the hard work of both ScottishPower Renewables and DONG Energy, as well as the contracting teams and suppliers working on the project. The operations at Belfast Harbour have been working well, and we are delighted with progress on the project.”
The components for the wind farm are stored at the bespoke offshore wind installation and pre-assembly facility at Belfast Harbour ready for sailing out to the construction site in the East Irish Sea.
Offshore work is being carried out by two of the world’s most advanced installation vessels: Swire Blue Ocean’s Pacific Orca and the Sea Installer – owned by A2SEA. Working in tandem, Sea Installer is currently installing the wind turbines with Pacific Orca scheduled to finish foundation installation around the end of October 2013.
Notes to editors
For more information, please contact:
Paul Childs, DONG Energy 020 7811 5519
pachi@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. We are headquartered in Denmark. Our business is based on procuring, producing, distributing and trading in energy and related products in Northern Europe. We have approximately 7,000 employees and generated DKK 57 billion (EUR 7.6 billion) in revenue in 2012. 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 and it currently has a pipeline of around 10,000MW in offshore wind projects across Europe, primarily in the UK. ScottishPower Renewables was the first developer in the UK to achieve one gigawatt (GW) of electricity production capacity from wind power.