DONG Energy announced it will construct the 660MW Walney Extension offshore wind farm, located in the Irish Sea, approximately 19km off the west coast of Britain.
The final investment decision has been made after securing all necessary consents from authorities, completing site assessments and having signed the majority of the contracts for supply and installation to build the project.
Walney Extension is expected to be fully commissioned in 2018, at which time it will surpass in size the 630MW London Array offshore wind farm which was commissioned in 2014 by DONG Energy and its partners. The wind farm will be constructed and operated under the UK's EMR FID-enabling regime with a fixed price for the first 15 years of production.
“Walney Extension will deliver clean electricity to more than 460,000 UK homes and I’m very pleased that we can now start construction of what will be the world’s biggest offshore wind farm when completed,” said Samuel Leupold, Executive Vice President at DONG Energy. “Building this offshore wind farm will bring us significantly closer to realizing our strategy of having 6.5GW of installed capacity online by 2020.”
DONG Energy has decided to apply two different turbines: 40 8MW turbines from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind and 47 Siemens 7MW offshore turbines.
Seimens said the order is the first for its new &MW offshore wind turbines, each having a rotor diameter of 154m. Installation is expected to start in 2018.
“British offshore wind has seen phenomenal growth in recent years,” Leupold said. “A prerequisite for long-term growth in the industry is, that offshore wind eventually can compete on costs with other energy technologies.
“Building Walney Extension will bring us one step closer to that target, and I’m satisfied to see that we keep bringing costs down, while continuing to expand the UK supply chain. I’m also excited about the fact that turbine blades, part of the foundations and cable installation will come from UK manufacturing facilities and vessels and create local jobs.”
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