Renewables - Ørsted: Full power at Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm
Friday 2 February 2018
Full power output has been achieved at Ørsted’s Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm, located off the North Norfolk coast.
Installation of the wind turbines at Race Bank first began in May 2017 and following successful completion of the 240-hour acceptance tests of all 91 turbines, and the 200-hour test of the full park, the project is now capable of generating its full capacity of 573 megawatts (MW). During the commissioning process of the final turbines, Race Bank also passed 1 terawatt hour (TW-h) of production since construction began.
Race Bank uses Siemens Gamesa 6MW wind turbines and many of these turbines feature the first blades to be manufactured at the Siemens Gamesa blade factory in Hull.
Race Bank will be Ørsted’s first offshore wind farm to use a new Service Operation Vessel (SOV) for operations and maintenance (O&M). The SOV can remain out at sea with the O&M team for up to 28 days at a time, and will greatly improve the efficiency of maintaining the project.
A team based in Grimsby will be responsible for carrying out this O&M work for the lifetime of Race Bank.