Major Swedish utility Vattenfall says that it has completed the installation of all 30 wind turbines at the Ormonde offshore wind farm in the UK in just over four months.
The 150 MW wind farm features 30 of the world’s largest commercially available offshore wind turbine – REpower’s 5M unit – and also represents the first commercial deployment of a steel lattice quadrupled foundation, manufactured by Burntisland Fabrications.
Vattenfall says that electricity from the wind farm, located 10 km off the coast of northwest England, will be generated for the first time later this summer.
Ole Bigum Nielsen, Vattenfall’s head of offshore wind development in the UK, said: “Vattenfall has been pioneering the development of offshore wind for many years, with Ormonde hot on the heels of our recently completed Thanet Offshore Wind Farm, still the world’s largest operating offshore wind farm.” He added that Ormonde is “a sign of things to come as the UK offshore wind industry gears up to deliver its enormous potential”.
Offshore construction of Ormonde started in 2010 and by the summer of that year all of the steel lattice quadruped jacket foundations had been installed. The first wind turbine at Ormonde was lifted onto the foundation and installed on 23 March this year.
The 5M turbines have a tip height of 153 m above sea level and a rotor diameter of 126 m.
