DONG Energy to build Westermost Rough offshore wind farm

DONG Energy says it has erected two 6 MW Siemens offshore wind turbines at the site of the Gunfleet Sands III demonstration project in England.

According to Siemens, the installation was performed by an offshore wind installation vessel called “Sea Installer.”

The wind turbines were already tested onshore at both the Hovsore test center and Osterild test center in Denmark, and they will now undergo a demonstration program at Gunfleet Sands. DONG Energy is preparing the turbines for operation and expects that they will start producing electricity in February.

In July 2012, DONG Energy and Siemens entered into a framework agreement for Siemens to supply a total of 300 6 MW wind turbines for DONG Energy’s projects in England.

DONG Energy has decided to build the offshore wind farm Westermost Rough in the North Sea on the British east coast.

The construction will represent a total investment of approximately EUR 1 billion including the construction of the transmission assets. When the wind farm goes into operation, the transmission assets will be sold to an offshore transmission operator, as required by UK regulation.

Westermost Rough will consist of 35 turbines from Siemens Wind Power, each of 6.0 megawatt, with a total capacity of 210 megawatt. It will be able to supply CO2-free power corresponding to the annual power consumption of almost 210,000 British households.

“With the decision to build Westermost Rough, we expand our position as world leading in the development, construction and maintaining of offshore wind farms,” said Henrik Poulsen, CEO of DONG Energy.

Siemens 6.0 MW wind turbine has just been erected at our demonstration site Gunfleet Sands 3 and has already been tested at Test Centre Østerild and Test Centre Høvsøre in Denmark.

“The size and location of the project is very well suited as the first large scale project with the new Siemens 6 megawatt wind turbine. We are sure that this project is a good foundation in our continuous work to bring down the cost of offshore wind,” said Henrik Poulsen and continued:

“The UK offshore wind market is the biggest  in the world and we are confident that the UK market will continue to be a very interesting market to the offshore wind industry.”

The Westermost Rough offshore wind farm will be situated 8 km off the Yorkshire Coast, east of Hull.

Offshore construction of the Westermost Rough offshore wind farm will begin in first half of 2014 and the farm is expected to be fully commissioned in the first half of 2015.

The information provided in this announcement does not change DONG Energy’s previous financial guidance for the 2012 financial year or the announced expected investment level.

DONG Energy is one of the leading energy groups in Northern Europe. We are headquartered in Denmark. Our business is based on procuring, producing, distributing and trading in energy and related products in Northern Europe. We have approximately 7,000 employees and generated DKK 57 billion (EUR 7.6 billion) in revenue in 2011. For further information, see www.dongenergy.com