The Lincs Offshore Wind Farm is celebrating the successful installation of the project’s final turbine.
The 75 th Siemens 3.6MW turbine was installed today by specialist jack-up vessel MPI Resolution, completing the installation programme which began on 14 July 2012, and bringing the wind farm up to its full installed capacity of 270MW.
Lincs Project Director Patrick Harnett said: “We’re delighted to have reached this important milestone, which comes as a result of a lot of hard work on all sides.
“Moving forward we’ll be focusing on the commissioning of each of the 3.6MW turbines, getting the wind farm up to full strength and, most importantly, delivering much needed power for the UK’s homes and businesses.”
The installation of the final turbine marks a major milestone in the development of the project, which will be capable of producing enough energy to meet the annual power needs of more than 200,000 households. Now all of the turbines have been installed, work begins on commissioning the wind farm which is expected to be fully commissioned later this year.
“We’re very pleased to have the last turbine in at Lincs. This project is a step towards meeting DONG Energy’s installed capacity target of 6.5GW across Northern Europe,” Benj Sykes, UK Country Manager for DONG Energy Wind Power said .
DONG Energy has a 25% stake in the project, situated 8km off the coast of Lincolnshire, near Skegness. Lincs is the fourth wind farm that DONG Energy has a stake in to be finished in 2013 – installation at London Array,where DONG Energy has a 50% stake, was completed in January this year, the 100% owned Gunfleet Sands demonstration project off the coast of Clacton-on-Sea in Essex was also completed in January and the 400 MW Anholt Offshore Wind Farm, where DONG Energy has a 50% stake will be finalised later this year.
These milestones bring the number of operational wind farms DONG Energy has a stake in to a total installed capacity of 2.6GW and a ownership share of 1.4 GW.
The wind farm is located 8 kilometres (5 miles) off the coast of Skegness and is being built out of Centrica’s new operations and maintenance base in Grimsby, which was opened last year as a major new hub for the business. Construction of the project started in 2010 with full commissioning expected later this year.
Lincs is a joint venture between Centrica Energy, DONG Energy and Siemens Project Ventures.
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Press release, April 2, 2013; Image: DONG Energy