Westermost Rough Wind Farm
Westermost Rough visible on the horizon, under construction in March 2015
Country
  • United Kingdom
Location8 km (5 mi) north-east of Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire
Coordinates53°49′N 0°09′E / 53.81°N 0.15°E / 53.81; 0.15
StatusOperational
Construction began2014
Commission date
  • May 2015
Owner(s)
Operator(s)
Wind farm
Type
Rotor diameter
  • 154 m (505 ft)
Site area35 km2 (14 sq mi)
Power generation
Units operational35 × 6 MW
Make and modelSiemens Gamesa SWT-6.0-154 (35)
Nameplate capacity
  • 210 MW
External links
CommonsRelated media on Commons

Westermost Rough Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm 8 kilometres (5 mi) north east of Withernsea off the Holderness coast, in the North Sea, England. The farm covers an area of approximately 35 km2 (14 sq mi) with a generation capacity of approximately 210 MW. It became operational in May 2015.

History

The Westermost Wind farm site was originally awarded to Total in 2003 during the initial Round 2 wind farm tendering process; Total later withdrew and the concession was returned to the Crown Estate in 2006.[1] In 2007 DONG Energy was awarded a lease from The Crown Estate to develop a wind farm at Westermost Rough.[2] The company Westermost Rough Ltd was established 2007;[n 1] a subsidiary of DONG Energy.[3]

A planning application was submitted in November 2009,[4] and consent was given by the Department of Energy and Climate Change in 2011 for a development of up to 80 turbines of up to 245 MW power with a limit of 172 m (564 ft) turbine tip height, and 150 m (490 ft) rotor diameter, as well as associated onshore and offshore substations, cabling and other infrastructure.[5]

Initial expectations were for an earliest in service date of 2014,[4] in January 2013 construction of the wind farm was confirmed, with construction scheduled to start in 2014 with the farm operational by 2015.[6][7][8]

DONG Energy sold a 50% stake in the wind farm in equal parts to the Green Investment Bank and to Marubeni Corporation for a total of £240 million; as part of the sale the two buyers committed to investing £500 million in the construction of the wind farm;[9] the two companies, through the joint company WMR JV Investco Limited secured £370 million from lenders in August 2014 to fund the capital cost of the project.[10][11]

Design, manufacture and construction

The wind farm is located 8 km (5 mi) off the Holderness coast, roughly northeast of Withernsea.[n 2] The proposed design is for 35 to 80 turbines of between 3 and 7 MW power output, in an area of 35 km2 (14 sq mi), with a total installed capacity of up to 245 MW.[12]

The offshore substation design was subcontracted to Ramboll,[13] with medium voltage turbine to offshore transformer submarine cables supplied by Nexans.[14] High voltage 155 kV submarine export cables and 155/275 kV underground cables were contracted to be supplied from LS Cable & System of Korea.[15][16] The cable landing point is to be near Tunstall, East Riding of Yorkshire, with a national grid connection made via the buried cables to a new substation at Salt End.[17]

The project was the first commercial use of gearless 6 MW Siemens Wind turbines;[18][19] 35 turbines were to be installed, giving a capacity of 210 MW.[20] Varde, Denmark based Titan Wind Energy was contracted to supply towers, with tower foundations supplied by Bladt Industries of Aalborg, Denmark.[21] The driven monopile foundations are 6.25 metres (20.5 ft) diameter with mass up to 800 t, with 425 t transition pieces.[22]

A dual Doppler radar system, (originally developed by the US National Wind Institute,[23][24] and supplied by SmartWind Technologies, LLC.[25]) was used to measure high-density wind details over the large wind farm area, with the experiment supported by the Carbon Trust organisation.[26][27]

GeoSea was awarded the contract to install foundation piles in April 2013.[28] The first foundation pile was installed in February 2014.[29] In early 2014 residents of Withernsea and the nearby area reported noise and vibration disturbance during the night time, attributed to piling at the wind farm site; by April 2014 an investigation by the Marine Management Organisation had found evidence of noise, but the results were not conclusive enough for it to act on.[30] Foundation installation was completed by May 2014,[31] and the offshore substation installed by June 2014.[32] Turbine installation was completed March 2015.[33]

Operations

The wind farm was commissioned and became operational in May 2015.[34] Its levelised cost has been estimated at £121/MWh.[35]

In May 2015, Ofgem awarded preferred bidder status to own and operate the electrical transmission assets of the wind farm to Transmission Capital Partners;[36] in early 2016 the sale of the assets (TC Westernmost Rough OFTO Ltd.) to a consortium of Transmission Capital Partners Limited Partnership and International Public Partnerships Limited was completed.[37] In early 2016 CWind was given a 20-year contract to maintain the TC Westernmost Rough OFTO's electrical transmission assets.[38]

In 2017, DONG Energy rebranded themselves as Ørsted as the acronym for DONG Energy - Danish Oil & Natural Gas - was seen as inappropriate for a company which had divested its entire oil and gas operations and was building an energy portfolio that was approaching 100% renewable.[39]

Notes

References

  1. ↑ Hjelmstad, Per, "DONG Energy's internationale Havmølleaktiviteter" (PDF), Dansk Vindkraftkonference 2008 (in Danish), DONG Energy, Westermost Rough, p.11, retrieved 26 September 2012
  2. ↑ THE CROWN ESTATE AWARDS WESTERMOST ROUGH OFFSHORE WINDFARM SITE TO DONG ENERGY, Crown Estate, 24 May 2007, retrieved 26 September 2012
  3. ↑ Westermost Rough non technical summary (October 2009), "Introduction"
  4. 1 2 Time Schedule, DONG Energy, archived from the original on 20 January 2011, retrieved 26 September 2012
  5. ↑ Sources:
  6. ↑ Time Schedule, DONG Energy, archived from the original on 27 June 2013, retrieved 26 September 2012
  7. ↑ "Westermost Rough offshore wind farm to be built", BBC News Humberside, 30 January 2013, retrieved 30 January 2014
  8. ↑ "Westermost Rough offshore wind farm to be built", Grimsby Telegraph, 31 January 2013, retrieved 30 January 2014
  9. ↑ Marubeni Corporation and UK Green Investment Bank to become co-owners of DONG Energy's Westernmost Rough offshore wind farm (Press release), DONG Energy, 31 March 2014, retrieved 24 April 2014
  10. ↑ "Project Financing Agreement for the 210MW Westermost Rough Offshore Wind Power Project", www.marubeni.com, 11 August 2014, retrieved 11 August 2014
  11. ↑ "GIB, Marubeni rejig Rough cash", renews.biz, 11 August 2014, retrieved 11 August 2014
  12. ↑ About Westermost Rough, DONG Energy, archived from the original on 20 January 2011, retrieved 26 September 2012
  13. ↑ "SUBSTATION DESIGN FOR WESTERMOST ROUGH OFFSHORE WIND FARM", www.ramboll.com, Ramboll, retrieved 26 September 2012
  14. ↑ Nexans delivers medium-voltage submarine cables for Westermost Rough wind farm, Nexans, 25 January 2013, retrieved 30 January 2014
  15. ↑ LS Cable & System, first in Korea to enter European submarine cable market, LS Cable & System, 5 February 2013, retrieved 31 January 2014, LS Cable & System announced on the 5th the supply of 150kV level submarine cables, 150kV&275kV extra high-voltage underground cable and connection materials to a scale of 16 million Euros (approx. KRW 23 billion) to Dong Energy, [... to] be used in an offshore wind power generation complex to be built in Westermost Rough on the Southeastern Coast of the U.K. [...] the extra high-voltage underground cables will be used to transmit electric energy [...] to an inland transmission site.
  16. ↑ Carr, David (5 February 2013), "LS Cable & System wins €16m cable contract from Dong", www.windpoweroffshore.com, retrieved 31 January 2014
  17. ↑ Westermost Rough non technical summary (October 2009), "The Project", p.4; also "Summary of Onshore Environmental Impact Assessment", p.16
  18. ↑ Blackwell, Ben, "Dong's Westermost Rough first in line for Siemens 6MW roll out", www.rechargenews.com, retrieved 26 September 2012
  19. ↑ Wittrup, Sanne (15 August 2014), Så er den første af Siemens' kæmpemøller rejst til havs (in Danish), Ingeniøren, retrieved 19 February 2015
  20. ↑ "UK: DONG to Build Westermost Rough Offshore Wind Farm", www.offshorewind.biz, 30 January 2013, retrieved 30 January 2013
  21. ↑ Miller, Ben (28 November 2013), "Titan Wind Energy to supply towers for Westermost Rough", www.windpoweroffshore.com, retrieved 30 January 2014
  22. ↑ "Engineering works for the Westermost Rough Offshore Wind Farm", www.twd.nl, archived from the original on 1 February 2014, retrieved 31 January 2014
  23. ↑ D. Hirth, Brian; Schroeder, John L.; Scott Gunter, W.; Guynes, Jerry G. (March 2015), "Coupling Doppler radar-derived wind maps with operational turbine data to document wind farm complex flows", Wind Energy, John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 18 (3): 529–540, doi:10.1002/we.1701
  24. ↑ Measuring the Complex Flows Found in Wind Plants, Texas Tech University, retrieved 9 June 2015
  25. ↑ "Carbon Trust backs Dong radar trial", renews.biz, 11 March 2015, retrieved 4 February 2016
  26. ↑ Wittrup, Sanne (19 February 2015), Radarsystem fra Dong skal øge havmøllers strømproduktion (in Danish), Ingeniøren, retrieved 19 February 2015
  27. ↑ Snieckus, Darius (19 February 2015), "Dong to test dual-Doppler wind radar at Westermost Rough", rechargenews.com, retrieved 19 February 2015
  28. ↑ "GeoSea bags Rough and Borkum", renews.biz, 12 April 2013, retrieved 30 January 2014
  29. ↑ "Smooth start at Westermost Rough", renews.biz, 25 February 2014, retrieved 24 April 2014
  30. ↑ Sources:
  31. ↑ "Foundations done at Westermost", renews.biz, 27 May 2014, retrieved 27 May 2014
  32. ↑ "Westermost substation takes stage", renews.biz, 3 June 2014, retrieved 5 June 2014
  33. ↑ "Dong completes set at Westermost", renews.biz, 30 March 2015, retrieved 30 March 2015
  34. ↑ "Westermost Rough hits full power", reNEWS - Renewable Energy News, retrieved 9 June 2015
  35. ↑ Aldersey-Williams, John; Broadbent, Ian D.; Strachan, Peter A. (1 May 2019). "Better estimates of LCOE from audited accounts – A new methodology with examples from United Kingdom offshore wind and CCGT". Energy Policy. 128: 25–35. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2018.12.044. hdl:10059/3298.
  36. ↑ "TCP snares Westermost grid", renews.biz, 15 May 2015, retrieved 15 May 2015
  37. ↑ "Westermost grid sale agreed", renews.biz, 4 February 2016, retrieved 4 February 2016
  38. ↑ "CWind grabs Westermost gig", renews.biz, 15 February 2016, retrieved 15 February 2016
  39. ↑ "DONG Energy becomes Ørsted on 6 November". www.dongenergy.co.uk. Retrieved 15 December 2017.

Sources

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