The first wind turbine has been installed at the 913 MW German offshore wind farm Borkum Riffgrund 3, jointly owned by Ørsted and Nuveen Infrastructure.
The project’s first wind turbine was installed by the vessel Seaway Ventus from Seaway 7. The installation will also be carried out in equal parts by Wind Osprey from Cadeler. A total of 83 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 11 MW, will be installed at the farm.
Once the project has been commissioned, expected next year, offtake agreements totalling 786 MW have been entered into with Amazon for 350 MW, BASF for 186 MW, Covestro for 100 MW, Energie-Handels-Gesellschaft/REWE Group for 100 MW and Google for 50 MW. The contracts range from 10 to 25 years.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 is the first offshore wind farm to be built by Ørsted in Germany without an offshore substation (OSS). The new connection concept provides for a direct connection of the wind turbines via 66 kV connection cables to the DolWin epsilon offshore converter platform operated by the German transmission system operator, TenneT.
“Borkum Riffgrund 3 is an icebreaker in offshore wind,” says Peter Obling, head of Continental Europe at Ørsted. “It was the first offshore wind project in the world to be awarded on a merchant basis, and it’s the first offshore wind farm in Germany to break the 900 MW-mark. I’m proud to see that the first turbine is now installed, and we look forward to completing this milestone project.”
