Isra-Mart srl:Walney offshore wind farm under starter's orders

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Isra-Mart srl news:

Dong Energy's Walney wind farm is gearing up to connect to the grid at the beginning of December, the Danish company has confirmed, but plans to significantly expand the facility hang in the balance.

Steen Brok-Lauridsen, project manager of the 367MW project, split into Walney 1 and 2, said Dong, which also inaugurated the giant Gunfleet Sands wind farm in June, had earmarked 6 December for the first link up with the national grid after overcoming a break in the connecting cable to the shore.

In October, the 45km cable was severed by the plough burying it under the seabed, necessitating a complex splicing operation for which engineers had to wait a month for a suitable weather window. Jointing was completed by 18 November and the company is now checking the cable before a grid connection can be established.

"We will be testing in the next few weeks, then commissioning and connecting Walney 1 to the grid," Brok-Lauridsen said. "First power should be around mid-December."

Currently, 30 of the planned 51 turbines that make up Walney 1 are in place, and Brok-Lauridsen said he was confident the remainder would be installed by spring next year after two extra vessels were deployed to help speed up the process.

Installation work on Walney 2, with further 513.6MW turbines 15km off the Barrow coast and adjacent to Walney 1, should begin in April and the company predicts it will be completed in six months, despite the fact it is in much deeper water and will require bigger monopiles, towers and turbines.

However, the future of a 750MW extension to Walney, which would take it well over the 1GW mark, remains undecided.

Jens Nybo Jensen, information officer at Dong, said a decision on whether the company would go ahead with Walney 2.5 could take years. "It will take us a while to get consents and have the right set up for projects," he said. "It takes time. I think four years or something like that."

He also rated the chances of proceeding with the already approved 500MW West of Duddon Sands project, another Irish Sea wind farm 25 per cent owned by Dong and expected to start construction in 2013, at just 50-50 as a result of financial pressures.

The news will further fuel concern about the financial viability of the next generation of offshore wind farms after energy giant Vattenfall announced in October that it would not proceed with plans to extend its Thanet wind farm and Fred Olsen Renewables last week pulled out of the 450MW Forth Array wind farm.

Nybo Jensen said he expected more wind farm developers to enter into partnerships with other companies to spread the risk and cost entailed in the enormous Round 3 projects that dwarf many of the currently operational wind farms.

Dong has embraced this approach by selling a 25.1 per cent share in Walney to Scottish and Southern Energy in December last year, while also holding a 50 per cent stake in the 1GW London Array and the 90MW Barrow wind farm, as well as a 25 per cent share in the planned Lincs project.