Wind farm developer Dong Energy has kick-started a DKK450m (£51m) project to bring down the cost of offshore wind energy, signing a deal to buy two of Siemens next-generation offshore wind turbines to test in UK and Danish waters.
The Danish utility announced yesterday that Siemens will supply two of its planned 6MW prototype turbines, plus an updated model of its 3.6MW turbine.
A Dong spokesman told BusinessGreen the company has not yet decided where or when the turbines will be installed, but the most likely candidate is the 172MW Gunfleet Sands wind farm off the Essex coast, where the firm has a Crown Estate licence to test two new turbines.
He said the second test machine will be installed at one of three possible sites in Denmark, but a decision will not be made until next year. He also said no decision has yet been made on which companies will work on the rest of the project.
As part of the deal, Siemens will also supply an updated version of its 3.6MW turbine with a 120-metre rotor for use at Dongs’s Avedøre Holme test site in Denmark.
Dong expects the total investment for the construction of the three turbines will amount to around DKK 450m.
In October, Siemens revealed it will begin manufacturing the 6MW turbines in at a new UK factory from 2014. The machine is designed specifically for offshore conditions and will use direct drive technology, an increasingly popular design that contains no gearbox and as such is expected to cut the cost of maintenance for difficult to access offshore turbines.
The turbine will provide almost double the energy of current offshore wind farms. Experts predict that a new generation of giant 6-10MW turbines will emerge over the next few years as developers work to increase outputs and reduce the cost of offshore energy.
The deal further strengthens ties between the two companies, after they signed a deal last year for Siemens to supply Dong with at least 500 wind turbines, representing world’s largest offshore wind turbine deal.
The Dong spokesman confirmed that this latest deal is in addition to that earlier agreement.
Source: Business Green
