He Dreiht: Germany's largest wind farm is being built off Borkum

It's turning: Germany's largest offshore wind farm is being built in the North Sea off Borkum. The first wind turbine has just been completed. It is one of the largest currently on the market.

The Danish company Vestas has installed the first wind turbine at the He Dreiht – wind farm: He turns – the first V236-15.0 MW wind turbine installed at the wind farm, as announced by Vestas and the operator EnBW. He Dreiht is the first wind farm in which Vestas has installed the 15 megawatt turbines.

The Vestas V236-15.0 MW wind turbine has a rotor with a diameter of 236 meters and a swept area of more than 43,000 square meters. It delivers a maximum output of 15 megawatts. Such a plant is expected to generate up to 80 gigawatt hours per year. By comparison, a three-person household in Germany consumes 4.5 megawatt hours a year, including electric water heating.

64 wind turbines for He Dreiht

He Dreiht is being built around 85 kilometers northwest of Borkum and around 110 kilometers west of Helgoland. When the wind farm is completed, there will be 64 wind turbines of this type. The foundations were already built last year.

The wind turbines are all due to be installed within a year. They will be delivered by ship from the port city of Esbjerg on the Danish west coast. The internal cabling of the wind farm is being carried out in parallel with the construction of the wind turbines.

The total output of He Dreiht will be 960 megawatts. Mathematically, the wind turbines can produce enough electricity to supply 1.1 million households. This will make He Dreiht the largest German offshore wind farm on completion – until Nordlicht I goes into operation with an installed capacity of 980 megawatts, which will not be before 2027.

Large wind turbines have advantages

Larger wind turbines deliver a higher output. This means that more electricity can be generated with fewer turbines in a wind farm. The Vestas V236-15.0 MW wind turbine is one of the largest currently on the market and in commercial use. Only the MySE 16.0-260 from the Chinese company Mingyang, which delivers a maximum output of 16 megawatts, is larger.

However, significantly larger wind turbines are being planned or are already being tested as prototypes, including the 20 megawatt wind turbine from the Chinese state-owned China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC), which was commissioned in January. The largest turbine currently in operation is from Siemens Gamesa and has an output of 21.5 megawatts. It is being built at the Østerild test site on the north coast of the Danish mainland.

And that's not the end of the story either: Mingyang Smart Energy is building a wind turbine with a capacity of 22 megawatts. Chinese manufacturers Goldwind, Shanghai Electric and China State Shipbuilding Corporation (CSSC) announced one with 26 megawatts last fall, and Dongfang Electric one with 26 megawatts as well.

(wpl)