The first offshore wind tower section has left the paint shop at CS Wind UK’s facilities in Machrihanish, Scotland.
The wind turbine tower manufacturer started working on the first sections in late August, with the first unit completed last week.
CS Wind of South Korea bought the Machrihanish factory, former Wind Towers Scotland, in April 2016, and announced plans to set up the first factory in the UK to commercially produce offshore wind towers, located adjacent to CS Wind’s current onshore wind facilities.
In July 2016, CS Wind UK signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Siemens to produce up to 200 towers for the company’s offshore wind turbines between 2017 and 2019.
The same month, the wind tower manufacturer signed an agreement with Vattenfall on the potential supply of components for Vattenfall’s onshore and offshore wind projects in the UK.
In December 2016, DONG Energy agreed to a multi-million pound investment in CS Wind’s new offshore tower manufacturing facility, which gives the offshore wind developer preferred access rights to towers for its offshore wind farms.