Offshore wind developer Vattenfall has informed that the first wind turbine has been installed at its Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm in the Danish sector of the Baltic Sea.
"On 27 January, the tower, nacelle, and blades were installed for the first turbine at the Kriegers Flak offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea. A process that normally takes about 14 hours," Vattenfall said.
Once completed the wind farm will have a production capacity of around 600 MW. It will consist of 72 wind turbines, each 187 meters tall, and each foundation weighs up to 800 tonnes.
Jacob Nørgaard Andersen, Country Manager at Vattenfall Denmark: "We are proud that the first of many turbines at Kriegers Flak is now in place and ready to produce electricity. We expect that households and industry one of the coming days will receive the first fossil-free electricity from the turbine. It is an important milestone in the project, it is happening on schedule and it is fantastic to see the offshore wind farm take shape."
The installation follows the granting last week by the Danish Energy Agency of the license to produce electricity. Despite the restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the construction of Kriegers Flak is generally proceeding according to plan and scheduled to be fully operational by the end of 2021, at the latest, Vattenfall said.
“Kriegers Flak makes a significant contribution in the Nordic region to our goal of enabling fossil-free living. It is a unique project integrating offshore wind production and interconnectivity between two countries – Denmark and Germany. And at the same time, it signals that the exploitation of the Baltic Sea's huge potential for offshore wind is now gaining momentum,” says Catrin Jung, Head of Offshore Wind in Vattenfall.
Compared to 2019, Kriegers Flak will increase the Danish production of wind energy by 16 percent or enough to cover the annual electricity consumption of approximately 600,000 Danish households.
The individual parts of the turbines are assembled at Port of Roenne on the Danish island of Bornholm. They are then shipped in sets of four to the construction site at sea. The 72 turbines are produced by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and will be commissioned on an ongoing basis as they are installed.
The offshore wind farm is located in the Baltic Sea, 15-40 kilometers off the Danish coast. The site covers an area of 132 km2 and has approximately 170 kilometers of subsea cables.