Half of the total 30 wind turbines at the Riffgat offshore wind farm have already been set up.
“Currently, the colleagues aboard a crane vessel are already working on the installation of the first turbine of the second half, so we will have the wind farm fully established in mid-July,” announced Irina Lucke, Technical Project Manager for the wind farm . The Riffgat will then be Germany’s first fully-built commercial wind farm in the North Sea.
The team needs a day, on average, for the installation of a turbine’s tower, nacelle and rotor blade. However, there are always instances when the wind at sea is too strong for the centimeter-accurate crane work.
“But we are aware of that fact, because we are intentionally building the park where the wind often blows very strongly and will produce as much electricity as possible later on,” says the Project Manager .
The individual components of wind turbines are loaded in Esbjerg, Denmark. The heavy-duty crane vessel “Bold Tern” can transport eight complete wind turbines on deck and then set them up one by one.
The Riffgat offshore wind farm will have a 108 MW capacity, comprising 30 wind turbines of the Siemens’ model SWT-3.6-120. It will produce enough electricity to power about 120,000 households with climate-friendly energy.
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Offshore WIND Staff, June 24, 2013; Image: riffgat.de