REpower Systems SE yesterday afternoon installed the last of the 30 total REpower 6M wind turbines in the Belgian offshore wind farm Thornton Bank Phase II. The customer for this project is the Belgian offshore project development company C-Power, which was set up by four Belgian investors and counts REpower customers RWE Innogy and EDF EN amongst its shareholders. ABB and THV Seawind, a consortium between DEME and Fabricom, were among the installation partners.
In 2008, REpower already delivered and installed six turbines of the REpower 5M type for the first construction phase of the Thornton Bank project. The offshore wind farm, located around 28 kilometres off the Belgian coast in waters between twelve and 27 metres deep, was officially commissioned at the end of June 2009.
The 2012 construction phase covers a total of 30 turbines of the REpower 6M type. Each of the turbines has a rated power of 6.15 megawatts. In its current state before the third construction phase, the offshore wind farm thus has a total output of 215 megawatts.
Andreas Nauen, CEO of REpower Systems SE , said: „With the REpower 6M, we are proud to have installed the most powerful offshore wind turbine to date. The fact that we were able to complete Phase II successfully and on time is proof of our well-developed logistics concept and the good cooperation between the teams during the installation of the turbines. We look forward to initiating the third construction phase of Thornton Bank with a further 18 REpower 6M turbines next year together with our long-standing customer C-Power.”
“Before the start of this installation phase, the project partners, our customer CPower, ABB, THV Seawind and REpower had all agreed to strict safety rules and to the principle of holding operational health and safety as our key priority. We all committed to this in a ‘Safety Charter’ before we had even shaken hands on anything else,” commented Frank Zimmermann, President Offshore at REpower.
“During the execution phase we paid special attention to ensure that all people involved in the project thought and acted in a safety-conscious manner in accordance with our charter. In this way we were once again able to avoid noteworthy accidents in our offshore project, which in my opinion is the most important thing.”
Companies from Belgium, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden are involved in Thornton Bank, making the wind farm a showcase project for the European offshore wind industry. Following the completion of all three construction phases, the wind farm will have a total output of 325 megawatts – enough to supply 600.000 people or a city the size of Glasgow with electricity. In terms of investment volume, the contract marks the largest financing for a completed project to date in the offshore wind industry overall.
In all three construction phases, REpower’s scope of delivery covers the production and supply of the nacelles, towers, blades and hubs as well as the preinstallation in the port of Oostende, the offshore installation and the commissioning and the test run of the turbines. With regards to service and maintenance, REpower will deliver its full service product OFS for all three phases, which includes responsibility for transportation at sea.
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Offshore WIND staff, July 27, 2012; Image: C-Power N.V., photographer Tom D’Haenens