Dong Energy has decided to proceed with the development of the 660-megawatt Walney Extension offshore wind farm, located in the Irish Sea, 19 kilometres off the west coast of Britain.
The final investment decision has been made after securing all necessary consents from authorities, completing site assessments and having signed the majority of the contracts for supply and installation to build the project.
Walney Extension is expected to be fully commissioned in 2018, at which time it 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. The wind farm will be constructed and operated under the UK’s EMR FID-enabling regime with a fixed price for the first 15 years of production.
“Walney Extension will deliver clean electricity to more than 460,000 UK 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,” said Samuel Leupold, Executive Vice President of Dong Energy Building. “This offshore wind farm will bring us significantly closer to realising our strategy of having 6.5GW of installed capacity online by 2020.”
Dong Energy will use two different turbines fort the project: 40 set of 8-MW turbines from MHI Vestas Offshore Wind and 47 set of Siemens 7-MW offshore turbines.
“British offshore wind has seen phenomenal growth in recent years,” said Leupold. “A prerequisite for long term growth in the industry is, that offshore wind eventually can compete on costs with other energy technologies. Building Walney Extension will bring us one step closer to that target, and I’m satisfied to see that we keep bringing costs down, while continuing to expand the UK supply chain. I’m also excited about the fact that turbine blades, part of the foundations and cable installation will come from UK manufacturing facilities and vessels and create local jobs.”
Dong Energy is currently is constructing 2,080MW in the UK and Germany. When these projects, including Walney Extension, are completed, the company would have developed a total of 5,089MW.
