DONG Energy has decided to construct the 660 MW Walney Extension Offshore Wind Farm, located approximately 19 km off the west coast of Britain in the Irish Sea.
According to DONG, the Walney Extension, when fully commissioned in 2018, will be the biggest offshore wind farm in the world – surpassing the 630 MW London Array Offshore Wind Farm, which was commissioned in 2014 by DONG Energy and its partners.
DONG made the final investment decision on the extension after securing all necessary consents from authorities, completing site assessments, and signing the majority of the contracts for supply and installation to build the project.
The wind farm will be constructed and operated under the U.K.'s Electricity Market Reform Final Investment Decision regime and will have a fixed price for the first 15 years of production.
DONG Energy will incorporate 40 MHI Vestas Offshore Wind 8 MW turbines and 47 Siemens 7 MW turbines.
‘This marks the first order for the innovative Siemens 7 MW wind turbine,’ says Michael Hannibal, CEO of offshore wind for Siemens' wind power and renewables division. ‘We introduced this upgraded version of our proven 6 MW model into the market only last March, and today we are proud to announce that DONG Energy has chosen our new flagship offshore turbine.’
"Walney Extension will deliver clean electricity to more than 460,000 U.K. 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," says Samuel Leupold, executive vice president of DONG Energy. "Building this offshore wind farm will bring us significantly closer to realizing our strategy of having 6.5 GW of installed capacity online by 2020.
Currently, the company is constructing 2.080 GW of wind in the U.K. and Germany. When these projects, including the Walney Extension, are completed, DONG Energy will have built a total of 5.089 GW.
Photo courtesy of DONG Energy
