The Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm in the UK suffered a technical fault on 9 August due to grid problems.
During the technical fault, the 1.2GW offshore wind farm significantly dropped its power production as it lost 800MW of electricity, around the same time as another generation source lost load, Ørsted said.
“During a rare and unusual set of circumstances affecting the grid, Hornsea One experienced a technical fault which meant the power station rapidly de-loaded – that is it stopped producing electricity,” a project spokesperson said.
The National Grid stated that the root cause of the issue was not with its system, but a rare and unusual event, the almost simultaneous loss of Hornsea One and one gas generator.
According to Ørsted, if the National Grid had any concerns about the operation of Hornsea One, it would not be allowed to generate electricity.
“The relevant part of the system has been reconfigured and we are fully confident should this extremely rare situation arise again, Hornsea One would respond as required.”
Hornsea Project One, currently under construction 120km off the coast of Yorkshire, will comprise 174 Siemens Gamesa 7MW turbines. It will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm once fully operational in 2020.