Oldenburg-based utility EWE will not see any power coming from its 113.4 MW Riffgat offshore wind farm until the end of April due to a malfunction on the subsea cable some 22 kilometres off the coast, Mathias Fischer, a spokesperson for the grid operator TenneT TSO, told Offshore WIND.
The wind farm has been offline since November 2015 when the export cable suffered a short circuit. The cable producer NKT is currently searching for the source of the malfunction.
Bad weather conditions are slowing down the repair efforts and the wind farm ”may not energise again before 24th of April 2016,” Fischer said.
TenneT connected the Riffgat OWF to the grid back in February 2014, following months of delays due to the unexploded ordnance left from the World War Two, which needed to be cleared from the seabed, creating EUR 100 million of additional costs.
This is the second time the farm had to stop producing power due to faulty cables. The farm was shut down in August 2014 after the cable connecting the wind farm to the grid was affected during the work on Dolwin converter station, and needed to be stabilised.
Comprising 30 SWT-3.6-120 Siemens wind turbines, the Riffgat offshore wind farm is located 15 kilometers to the north-west of the German island of Borkum.
Offshore WIND Staff